How a Future President Can Hold the Trump Administration Accountable
Last edited Thu Nov 19, 2020, 10:15 AM - Edit history (2)
First, the attorney general must conduct a top-to-bottom review of the DOJ to identify where politicization has influenced investigations, charging decisions, sentencing recommendations, and the like. There should be a particular focus on instances in which Trump administration allies received special treatment or opponents of his administration were targeted. This type of special treatment violates the DOJ’s Justice Manual, which states that
“legal judgments of the Department of Justice must be impartial and insulated from political influence.” Where possible, decisions that have been improperly influenced must be revisited.
Second,
nonpartisan career prosecutors must be allowed to pursue evidence of wrongdoing without political interference. If officials in the Trump administration—career or political—have broken the law, they must be treated like everyone else and held to account.
Third, there must be a recognition of the breadth of corruption across the executive branch. This problem is bigger than the White House and its current occupant. Throughout government, a culture of corruption has set in, where officials put their own interests before the public interest. A number of agency heads in the Trump administration have been forced to resign due to corruption scandals.
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.As the Justice Manual makes clear:
The legal judgments of the Department of Justice must be impartial and insulated from political influence. It is imperative that the Department’s investigatory and prosecutorial powers be exercised free from partisan consideration. It is a fundamental duty of every employee of the Department to ensure that these principles are upheld in all of the Department’s legal endeavors.