President Donald Trump's weaponization of the Justice Department to go after his political enemies is falling apart, New York Times reporter Glenn Thrush told MS NOW's Alicia Menendez on "Deadline: White House" — in part because they have lost too much legal talent and manpower to do it.
This comes as Federal Housing Finance Director Bill Pulte continues to make unfounded criminal referrals against New York Attorney General Letitia James, whose prosecution for mortgage fraud by the Trump administration imploded spectacularly last year after the prosecutor was disqualified.
"I mean, listen, in the case of AG James, we all know this is about the process and the pain that comes with the process and the time that comes with the process and the money that comes with the process," said Menendez. "And while everything else may not be real and may not be true, that remains real. That remains true. That is the effect and reality of his retribution campaign. Your sense, Glenn, based on your reporting on where we are in the escalation ladder when it comes to this DOJ being willing to target those whom the president identifies as his political enemies."
"We're in a really weird liminal period here because it seemed like things were gaining some traction middle latter part of last year, but the wheels are coming off the bus a little bit," said Thrush. "This is a Justice Department that has really weighed down by this Jeffrey Epstein files fiasco. And a lot of the energy that we're going into these selective prosecutions that Trump was ordering up like Ubers last year, they've fizzled out, and they're having a lot of trouble finding assistant U.S. attorneys to even bring any of these cases."
"So while this is still an enormously alarming set of circumstances, I think it is important to understand the degree of just fundamental dysfunction in the department right now," Thrush continued. "You have some of the senior leadership of the department from Pam Bondi on down, Jeanine Pirro in D.C., you have Harmeet Dhillon, head of the civil rights division, doing direct-to-camera pleas for law school graduates to come work for them. We've reported about the labor shortage in the U.S. attorney's office. Not surprisingly, good lawyers and even young lawyers don't want to come work for the Justice Department. That has become a profound problem."
"So I think while we're seeing a lot of these fireworks — and again, I've said this from the beginning — it's difficult to discern the fireworks from the artillery," he said. "And for a period of time, particularly late last year and in the summer, it seemed like it was artillery. It's seeming at the moment like it's fireworks."
"And one last thing, one point I want to make is we got a housing crisis in this country," Thrush added. "I covered housing for 20 years, low-income housing in New York and other places. What is Bill Pulte doing about the housing crisis? The FHA is supposed to be doing that. Why is he spending his time on the Justice Department's front lawn, when one of the big issues in the midterm elections is affordability, particularly at a time when interest rates are rising over the last couple of weeks and young families can't afford even cheap rental housing?"