Controlling the Department of Justice

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As the Founders feared, the Department of Justice, within a few decades of its formation, was politicized and acquiescent to the whims and demands of the head of the Executive Branch — the president.    

• Woodrow Wilson used the Justice Department to illegally harass and prosecute thousands of peaceful opponents of his policies and entry into World War 1.
• In 1936 Franklin Roosevelt authorized the Justice Department to surveil and gather intelligence on domestic political groups opposed to his quasi-socialist agenda. 
• In 1956 the Justice Department authorized the FBI to initiate a program (COINTELPRO) to disrupt the activities of the U.S. Communist Party.  In 1961 the Kennedy-Johnson administration expanded it to track, discredit, and destabilize any administration-defined dissident groups in the U.S.  These included civil rights organizations as well as Martin Luther King. 
• The Waco Massacre.  In 1993, seventy-six Americans (including twenty-six children) were burned to death because the Justice Department “believed” there were unauthorized weapons in the compound.  There were no consequences for anyone in the Clinton Justice Department, thus permanently emboldening the then and future occupants of the department into believing they were untouchable.                                          
• During the Obama years the weaponization of the Justice Department was greatly accelerated.  First, was the de facto takeover of local police forces through coerced consent decrees. Second, was the premeditated shakedown of corporations through unjustified deferred-prosecution agreements in order to funnel enormous sums of money into left-wing organizations. Third, an unprecedented domestic terrorism division was created in in order to surveil and prosecute those “motivated by any viewpoint on the full spectrum of hate” including unspecified anti-government views.   
• The Obama Justice Department also massively accelerated the use of embedded FBI informants and agents to entrap and prosecute Americans they had induced into contemplating but not committing a federal crime.  In violation of the First Amendment they prosecuted and spied on journalists. The insidious Trump-Russia Collusion hoax was abetted and executed by the Obama Justice Department. 
• The Biden Justice Department has continued the precedents of the Obama administration by categorizing and selectively prosecuting as “domestic terrorists” anyone who disagrees with the policies of the administration or the legitimacy of the 2020 election.  They also executed an unprecedented invasion of a former president’s residence using the pretext of the Presidential Records Act which does not contain criminal penalties.   

It is no coincidence that all the above occurred during Democrat administrations as the Democrat Party has a long history of tyrannical proclivities. No Republican other than Richard Nixon has overtly attempted to politicize the Department of Justice, and Nixon failed in his attempt as department loyalty was with the Democrat Party.

This reality is further borne out by the fact that during the last three election cycles (2016, 2018 and 2020) nearly 88% of all political contributions by Department of Justice employees went to Democrat candidates.

The Justice Department’s politicization and autocratic mindset is too entrenched to be reined in by cosmetic changes to its current structure or personnel. As the Democrat Party’s primary weapon in transforming the nation, the only option at this point is the following two-step strategy if this rogue department is to return to its original purpose.

First, legislation has to be passed to force a review of all laws and regulations with the goal of cutting by at least two-thirds the absurd number of federal crimes. John Baker, a retired Louisiana State law professor: “There is no one in the United States over the age of 18 who cannot be indicted for some federal crime.” A lesson not lost on Justice Department prosecutors and the hierarchy of the Democrat Party in their Captain Ahab-like obsession and fixation on indicting and convicting Donald Trump of any conceivable “crime.”

Second, the office of Attorney General and the Department of Justice were created by acts of Congress, and another act of Congress, therefore, can alter the department’s position and status as well as change the terms and manner of its operation.

This act would make the Department of Justice an independent agency reporting to Congress.The president would nominate for a six-year term an attorney general subject to a three-fifths vote of the Senate. The attorney general would report and be subject to Congress through a select committee made up of eight members, equally divided between Republicans and Democrats, four from the House and four from the Senate. The attorney general would nominate the solicitor general, deputy, and associate and assistant attorneys general, as well U.S. attorneys subject to Senate approval.

The director of the FBI would be nominated by the attorney general for a six-year term subject to a three-fifths vote of the Senate. The FBI would be restructured by transferring to the individual states investigations of federal crimes that occur within that state. The FBI would then act in a consulting, resource, and coordination role. It would be the lead investigating agency in investigating interstate federal crimes.

While the complexities of 21^st-century America rule out the possibility of eliminating the Department of Justice, these changes would begin the transformation of the department to its intended mission: the equal enforcement of federal law without political bias or presidential interference. But it requires a Republican Congress and a president with spine and fortitude, neither of which are in ample supply today. Unless that changes, the Democrat Party will succeed in establishing a one-party tyranny utilizing their primary weapon, the intimidation and ruthlessness of a politicized and weaponized Department of Justice.

Image: DoJ

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