He has a pliant Justice Department made up of his former criminal defense attorneys willing to go after anyone.”
View the full interview HERE.
Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senator Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) joined MSNBC’s The Briefing with Jen Psaki to discuss President Trump’s efforts to hide the Jeffrey Epstein files and the Republican party’s infighting, warn of Trump’s weaponization of the Department of Justice in order to do his bidding, and react to the news of the firing of the federal prosecutor who handled the Epstein case, Maurene Comey — daughter of former FBI Director James Comey.
Key Excerpts:
On the DOJ firing a Manhattan prosecutor who handled the Epstein case:
None of this is good news for the Trump administration or the American people for that matter, because either she was fired because she’s James Comey’s daughter, which would be totally inappropriate, and a wrongful termination, or she was fired because she was prosecuting Epstein and his accomplices. And why would they fire her over that? And why would they fire her now? So, none of this makes any sense, or none of it has a good or innocent explanation to it, which is why they’re just continuing to founder over this. They created this conspiracy theory, they fed this conspiracy theory, and now they have a MAGA base that has bought into it, and Donald Trump is at the point of calling his own supporters ‘weaklings’ who bought into this bullshit that he was peddling, among others. So, this is just widening and expanding upon all of the distrust of Donald Trump by his own base. And I think that’s the ultimate impact.
On reacting to Trump’s call for his criminal prosecution:
[…] First of all, it’s quite a letdown, because in the past, he was accusing me of treason and being a traitor, leaking classified information, you name it. And now he’s resorted to a baseless claim of mortgage fraud, really, is that the best you can do? So, it’s, on the one hand, very pathetic. On the other hand, this is now what he’s doing with lots of his opponents. He has a pliant Justice Department made up of his former criminal defense attorneys willing to go after anyone. So, they’re threatening me. They’re threatening James Comey. They’re threatening John Brennan. They’re threatening really, anyone who has the audacity to stand up to Donald Trump.
But this comes at also a very convenient moment, which is he is just stewing over his base calling for the release of these Epstein files. And given his close friendship with Epstein, Epstein calling him one of his closest friends over the last 10 years, his reluctance, his unwillingness to do what was promised and released these files is causing all of this churn. So, when that happens to Donald Trump, he lashes out his kind of enemies list, which I’m on. “Look at Adam Schiff. Look at James Comey. Look at this. Look at that. Look at Hillary Clinton. But whatever you do, don’t look at me. Don’t look at the Epstein files.” So, this is just also part of his campaign of distraction.
On Senate Republicans’ refusal to stand up to Trump’s controversial nominees including Emil Bove:
[…] This is a very credible whistleblower. This is someone who was promoted time after time, given accolades by the department, promoted even within the Trump administration. He was a vocal proponent of the president’s immigration policies, and here he is fired because he told the truth about the mistake involving the rendering of Abrego Garcia and the response to this act is, “Well, we don’t want to hear from this whistleblower. We don’t want to hear what he’s alleging,” which is serious allegations against Bove. That Bove was suggesting the Justice Department should basically tell the courts to ‘F-off’ and just ignore court orders. And this prosecutor making these allegations, this former prosecutor, is far more credible than Bove, who claims not to recall any of this. And when you consider the lengthy kind of improper rap sheet of this nominee, which includes his fellow prosecutors in New York saying he should be demoted when he was a prosecutor in New York. To a federal judge, saying that the case he was supervising was essentially misleading the court, withholding exculpatory evidence to the point where the case gets dismissed, to the point where he goes to the Justice Department, and almost en masse, attorneys are quitting, rather than do the unethical things he wants, like dismiss a corruption case against the mayor of New York, and then you have this whistleblower allegation.
Why not hear from this whistleblower? And I think the answer is, Republicans on that committee have taken a posture: “We don’t want to see it, we don’t want to hear it, we don’t want to think about it. We don’t want to know about it. We’re just here to do the president’s bidding.” And right now, Donald Trump is daring them, daring any of them, to stand up to even his most outrageous nominees — for in this case, a lifetime appointment.
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