"Weaponisation of the DOJ" seems to be a hot phrase being parroted about in USA right wing circles.
But what does that actually mean?
It comes down to levels of weaponisation. It isn't just yes its weaponised or no it's not.
I don't even like that term "weaponisation" It's very hyperbolic and seems to be solely used to put the audience into a state of fear.
Idealistically Lady Justice is supposed to be blind. No one is supposed to be able to press down and tilt the scales in their favour.
The person leading the justice department is typically a political person (a member of the ruling party, assigned to the position by the president or prime minister), but their job is to manage the DOJ machine, not to make it favourable for their party or leader and aggressive to opposition parties. They are there to support governance, funding and policy, not to make operational decisions e.g which case to take up and which not to. They can get involved in special circumstances to which they ought to appoint a Special Council and this Special Council is to be an independent highly qualified professional rather than a party member politician.
So to this regard the department are supposed to follow general policy and procedures and apply the law to incidences of crimes or potential crimes regardless of who the suspect or criminal is.
It helps if the AG steers clear of being the person to make operational decisions, stick to governance, stay out of operations.
In some dictator like countries, their head of DOJ equivalent has a close relationship with the president/prime minister and locks up on trumped up charges, the president/prime minister's political opposition and journalists and people that dissent. This is done in many countries. Russia for example, were locking people up for criticising Putin or even calling the Ukraine war a war.
So far in USA, no one has gone to that extreme.
D Trump campaigned on "Lock her up" with regards to H Clinton. It became a rally chant at his political rallies. It was a campaign promise. It was highly inappropriate for the presidential candidate to suggest he would interfere in the Justice system and to direct them towards investigating or charging Hilary. It was highly inappropriate for D Trump and his campaign members to claim that Hilary was guilty and to chant lock her up. In free world democracies there is a process before a person is determined as guilty, and people should expect presidents and presidential candidates to respect that process.
Perhaps in the imaginative and highly hopeful minds of some of Trump's most ardent MAGA fans they imagined and wanted Trump on first day of presidency to tap his AG on the shoulder and have the AG then send in the cops to arrest Hilary and throw her in jail. I expect those MAGA fans would have been totally fine with that and were probably disappointed that he didn't do this.
But ultimately the campaign promise went unfulfilled. H Clinton was no longer a threat anyway as the election was over and D Trump had won. It was all just hyperbolic bluster.
The FBI during the end of Obama's last term had started Hurricane Crossfire, an investigation into members of the D Trump campaign and whether they had illegally conspired with Russians in the Russian USA election interference campaign.
The DOJ didn't get involved until after D Trump took control of the white house and fired the FBI director in an attempt to kill the investigation. (This act was dictator like. President's should not look to interfere into FBI, CIA, or DOJ investigations). But anyway, the Republican acting Attorney General then recruited a Special Council to continue with this investigation (except only investigate non D Trump members of the D Trump campaign) and to also investigate if anyone helped D Trump with obstruction of Justice. The constraint that the acting AG put on Mueller was that he was not to indict the sitting president, so at no point did the investigation seek to charge D Trump with anything.
All the while the investigation went on D Trump continually spoke in front of cameras to undermine the investigation, continually and disgracefully calling it a witch hunt.
Somehow D Trump supporters and Right wing propaganda media tried to spin the investigation and paint it as the Democrats and MSM going after D Trump. When in fact the investigation was instigated and controlled by the Republicans, and the MSM were simply reporting that the investigation was happening.
D Trump appointed Bill Bar as the AG for the DOJ.
Throughout Bill Barr's tenure as AG for the DOJ he was in close contact with D Trump and spent much of his time running defense and errands for D Trump.
Characterising the Wire Tap as spying
Jumped ahead of the Special Counsel Report to falsely characterise its findings.
Interfering in the Michael Flynn case that the DOJ had, forcing the DOJ to drop the case.
Interfering in the Covid based parole of Michael Cohen, getting him back into prison as retaliation for Cohen legally publishing a book about D Trump
Interfering in the case against Roger Stone. prompting a letter by a Federal Judge
“In past administrations of both political parties, the function of the political appointees at the justice department has been to insulate the rest of the department from political pressure. And Bill Barr instead has become the conduit for that political pressure.”
Refusing to investigate the Ukraine pressure campaign by D Trump and Giuliani to extort Zelenski with urgently needed USA federal property into publicly announce an investigation into Joe Biden.
D Trump demanded from Bill Barr to declare widespread voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election despite no evidence of the fraud, then pressured Bill Barr to quit.
D Trump then demanded Bill Barr's replacement Jeffrey Rosen to submit a letter drafted by Jeffrey Clark to alert state officials falsely stating "that the Justice Department had identified significant concerns that would affect the state's election results"
D Trump then brought in Jeffrey Clark and threatened to fire Rosen and replace him with Clark.
“This evening, after Acting Attorney General Jeff Rosen over the course of the last week repeatedly refused the President’s direct instructions to utilize the Department of Justice’s law enforcement powers for improper ends, the President removed Jeff from the Department,” the draft letter, reviewed by CNN, says.
All of the above would be deemed as gross missuse of the DOJ. Using the DOJ as D Trump's personal department to protect him and his associates from investigations, to attack his "enemies", to try and steal the 2020 election for him.
Then under Biden's presidency, we've had Biden appoint Marrick Garland as his AG to the DOJ.
Biden stated that he would not interfere in any investigations and that he is leaving all upto Garland and the DOJ, he is not going to tell them to investigate D Trump.
When Garland created a Special Council to investigate Joe Biden's son, we have not heard Biden putting down the investigation, not heard him call it a witch hunt.
But what does that actually mean?
It comes down to levels of weaponisation. It isn't just yes its weaponised or no it's not.
I don't even like that term "weaponisation" It's very hyperbolic and seems to be solely used to put the audience into a state of fear.
Idealistically Lady Justice is supposed to be blind. No one is supposed to be able to press down and tilt the scales in their favour.
The person leading the justice department is typically a political person (a member of the ruling party, assigned to the position by the president or prime minister), but their job is to manage the DOJ machine, not to make it favourable for their party or leader and aggressive to opposition parties. They are there to support governance, funding and policy, not to make operational decisions e.g which case to take up and which not to. They can get involved in special circumstances to which they ought to appoint a Special Council and this Special Council is to be an independent highly qualified professional rather than a party member politician.
So to this regard the department are supposed to follow general policy and procedures and apply the law to incidences of crimes or potential crimes regardless of who the suspect or criminal is.
It helps if the AG steers clear of being the person to make operational decisions, stick to governance, stay out of operations.
In some dictator like countries, their head of DOJ equivalent has a close relationship with the president/prime minister and locks up on trumped up charges, the president/prime minister's political opposition and journalists and people that dissent. This is done in many countries. Russia for example, were locking people up for criticising Putin or even calling the Ukraine war a war.
So far in USA, no one has gone to that extreme.
D Trump campaigned on "Lock her up" with regards to H Clinton. It became a rally chant at his political rallies. It was a campaign promise. It was highly inappropriate for the presidential candidate to suggest he would interfere in the Justice system and to direct them towards investigating or charging Hilary. It was highly inappropriate for D Trump and his campaign members to claim that Hilary was guilty and to chant lock her up. In free world democracies there is a process before a person is determined as guilty, and people should expect presidents and presidential candidates to respect that process.
Perhaps in the imaginative and highly hopeful minds of some of Trump's most ardent MAGA fans they imagined and wanted Trump on first day of presidency to tap his AG on the shoulder and have the AG then send in the cops to arrest Hilary and throw her in jail. I expect those MAGA fans would have been totally fine with that and were probably disappointed that he didn't do this.
But ultimately the campaign promise went unfulfilled. H Clinton was no longer a threat anyway as the election was over and D Trump had won. It was all just hyperbolic bluster.
The FBI during the end of Obama's last term had started Hurricane Crossfire, an investigation into members of the D Trump campaign and whether they had illegally conspired with Russians in the Russian USA election interference campaign.
The DOJ didn't get involved until after D Trump took control of the white house and fired the FBI director in an attempt to kill the investigation. (This act was dictator like. President's should not look to interfere into FBI, CIA, or DOJ investigations). But anyway, the Republican acting Attorney General then recruited a Special Council to continue with this investigation (except only investigate non D Trump members of the D Trump campaign) and to also investigate if anyone helped D Trump with obstruction of Justice. The constraint that the acting AG put on Mueller was that he was not to indict the sitting president, so at no point did the investigation seek to charge D Trump with anything.
All the while the investigation went on D Trump continually spoke in front of cameras to undermine the investigation, continually and disgracefully calling it a witch hunt.
Somehow D Trump supporters and Right wing propaganda media tried to spin the investigation and paint it as the Democrats and MSM going after D Trump. When in fact the investigation was instigated and controlled by the Republicans, and the MSM were simply reporting that the investigation was happening.
D Trump appointed Bill Bar as the AG for the DOJ.
Throughout Bill Barr's tenure as AG for the DOJ he was in close contact with D Trump and spent much of his time running defense and errands for D Trump.
Characterising the Wire Tap as spying
Jumped ahead of the Special Counsel Report to falsely characterise its findings.
Interfering in the Michael Flynn case that the DOJ had, forcing the DOJ to drop the case.
Interfering in the Covid based parole of Michael Cohen, getting him back into prison as retaliation for Cohen legally publishing a book about D Trump
Interfering in the case against Roger Stone. prompting a letter by a Federal Judge
“In past administrations of both political parties, the function of the political appointees at the justice department has been to insulate the rest of the department from political pressure. And Bill Barr instead has become the conduit for that political pressure.”
Refusing to investigate the Ukraine pressure campaign by D Trump and Giuliani to extort Zelenski with urgently needed USA federal property into publicly announce an investigation into Joe Biden.
D Trump demanded from Bill Barr to declare widespread voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election despite no evidence of the fraud, then pressured Bill Barr to quit.
D Trump then demanded Bill Barr's replacement Jeffrey Rosen to submit a letter drafted by Jeffrey Clark to alert state officials falsely stating "that the Justice Department had identified significant concerns that would affect the state's election results"
D Trump then brought in Jeffrey Clark and threatened to fire Rosen and replace him with Clark.
“This evening, after Acting Attorney General Jeff Rosen over the course of the last week repeatedly refused the President’s direct instructions to utilize the Department of Justice’s law enforcement powers for improper ends, the President removed Jeff from the Department,” the draft letter, reviewed by CNN, says.
All of the above would be deemed as gross missuse of the DOJ. Using the DOJ as D Trump's personal department to protect him and his associates from investigations, to attack his "enemies", to try and steal the 2020 election for him.
Then under Biden's presidency, we've had Biden appoint Marrick Garland as his AG to the DOJ.
Biden stated that he would not interfere in any investigations and that he is leaving all upto Garland and the DOJ, he is not going to tell them to investigate D Trump.
When Garland created a Special Council to investigate Joe Biden's son, we have not heard Biden putting down the investigation, not heard him call it a witch hunt.
