'The answer is not appeasement': Mueller prosecutor goes off DOJ's footdragging on Trump
Republicans in Congress have been pushing a narrative that President Joe Biden is using the Justice Department and the FBI to attack his foes. A new report in The Washington Postreveals that the opposite is the case. Despite piling evidence, state referrals, and months-long public congressional hearings, the DOJ held back.
MSNBC host Nicolle Wallace explained that one of the understandings "for why we are here" is uncovering that the decisions that have been made thus far are "inherently political. Where the Barr Justice Department was aggressively, proactively, political through its actions, the Garland Justice Department has been equally political through inaction and through reluctance if there was truly a culture, as Carol reports, that saying Trump was taboo, that they were walking on eggshells because of who had committed the crime, that is a political culture."
Former senior prosecutor under Robert Mueller's team, Andrew Weissmann, explained that his knowledge of the department lends him to agree with the findings that The Post uncovered about the reluctance to shake the boat.
"I completely agree that if you have what you think is a noble intent to restore and you're trying to depoliticize what Attorney General Bill Barr did to the department, the answer is not appeasement," Weissmann explained. "History has never shown that appeasement is the answer. I agree with you that it is taking politics into account when you decide that you're going to create a higher standard before you look at somebody who committed a crime."
At the same time, Weissmann pointed out that comparing it to the prosecution of so many lower-level people for insurrection, the evidence was looking right at the DOJ.
"But according to The Washington Post, over and over again, the department's leadership was saying no to an investigation," he continued. "That is inherently political. Obviously, it is not on the same plane. Not the same level as Barr did where you're actively going arrest people because of politics, but not going after people is also a real wrong, and we're suffering the consequences of it now because there has been a delay, and as Carol rightly said, there is a race with the clock in terms of what Jack Smith is doing."
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