Weissmann: Trump’s Speech to the DoJ Conveys a Lack of Independence of the Department from the W.H.

RUSH EXCERPT:
WEISSMANN: "Yeah, well. There’s a lot to be said. I do think it’s worth noting something that you picked up on is who was there, and it was not a speech that was given to the career men and women of the Justice Department. This was a hand-selected group of people, some from the department, some not from the department, but that’s notable. Normally when you have an incoming administration, one, the president usually is not there talking to them, but there’s nothing that prohibits that, especially if it was going to be a speech about policy. But here it was not given to the sort of ordinary men and women it was. This was trying to be much more of a campaign speech. And so I don’t think that it is reflective of where the department as a whole is. There’s still lots of men and women in the department who are there to do the right thing, even if the leadership isn’t. Second, everything about the speech conveyed the lack of independence of the department from the White House, and that that is what separates us from an autocracy, that independence is a norm. It is not a law, but that is a norm. That is, there is good reason that Republican and democratic presidents have adhered to that norm, because they understand how dangerous it is that’s gone, completely gone. And then the final thing is it’s really notable there, just there really, other than the courts, as we were saying, as we were waiting for this segment is other than the courts, there are no checks on this president. You really get the sense that it is so different than the first Trump Administration. This, I don’t think could have happened in the first Trump Administration. And a good sign of that is today he issued yet another broadside on a defense firm. There’s now another firm, Paul Weiss, incredibly eminent firm. He issued it after a judge found unconstitutional the one that he issued just the other day."