MS NOW's Rachel Maddow kicked off Monday night with an in-depth analysis of how President Donald Trump's Justice Department, now under the control of Todd Blanche, is finding itself in trouble with judges for lying in court in pursuit of political gains.
"There is a lot that the U.S. government and this presidential administration is failing at right now — in the courts, in public opinion, in politics, in the technocratic and practical functions of government," said Maddow. "Even some of their schemes and scams are falling apart every day, every news cycle. The list just piles up of things at which they are failing."
As one case, she said, today, "the Justice Department and the Homeland Security Department learned that their officials may be held in contempt of court by a federal judge in Rhode Island."
"The administration put out a press release lying about this particular judge, vilifying this particular judge in terms that were not true," said Maddow, showing the release titled, "Activist Biden Judge Releases Violent Criminal Illegal Alien Wanted for Murder." "What it said in the press release about this judge was false. Now, today in court, the Justice Department's lawyer begged the judge's forgiveness for that. He admitted in today's court hearing in Rhode Island that he, in fact, had deliberately withheld information from this judge. He said he only did so because the Department of Homeland Security explicitly instructed him to do that."
"That's really bad," she said. "But he sort of threw himself on the mercy of the court, told the judge he's so, so sorry. Lying to a federal judge, lying about a federal judge is a really big deal if you're a lawyer or a government official. And even though Trump's Justice Department lawyer, quote, 'profusely apologized' for it in court today, the judge said at this hearing today that she is weighing contempt charges against DOJ officials and Homeland Security officials for lying. That is very not good."
But it's not even the only such case going on right now, Maddow continued, because a similar allegation of DOJ misconduct is unfolding in another part of the country.
"Another federal judge, a judge in Alabama, is also weighing a very serious allegation, a potentially very consequential allegation that DOJ lawyers may have lied to the grand jury in a very high-profile case in Alabama," she said. "This is the case about the Southern Poverty Law Center, where Trump's DOJ has brought a bizarre prosecution against that longtime civil rights group." Now, the SPLC "asked the judge in that case to allow them to see the transcript of what the lawyers from Trump's DOJ actually told the grand jury behind closed doors when they went in to talk to that grand jury, to convince that grand jury to sign off on the indictment on this civil rights group. They want to know what Trump's DOJ lawyers said to that grand jury."
"This is a very rare request," said Maddow. "This is a very unusual thing to request of the judge in a court case. But the reason they have done it is because in this case ... the indictment really makes it seem like Trump's Justice Department lawyers might have lied to the grand jury, might have told them things either about the civil rights group or about the law that were just factually wrong."
"If that happens, if it does turn out that the lawyers at Trump's DOJ lied to the grand jury in order to get that indictment, not only would that instantly end the indictment, end the case, it could very easily mean contempt of court or discipline, or even disbarment for the Trump lawyers involved here," said Maddow.
"The fact that this is even in play in a high-profile case like this is unheard of for Justice Department lawyers," she added. "But in Trump's Justice Department, that's kind of how they roll. They are not great at this."
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