Can There Be a Dept. of Justice Without Justice?

And if the answer to this question is “yes,” what should we instead call it?

by Mustang

The history of the DOJ is a study on creating bureaucracies. Our country never had a Department of Justice until 1 July 1870.  Congress decided we needed the department as part of the executive branch to handle the legal business of the United States.

Of course, the new department needed someone to run it, the Attorney General of the United States and a Solicitor General to assist the AG.  And a few full-time lawyers to manage a plethora of lawsuits following the Civil War. Today, the DOJ is the world’s largest “law firm.”

U.S. Department of Justice Headquarters

In those early days, the AG was only required to be “learned in the law.”  Now, the AG must be a political hack, which suggests an individual lacking personal integrity — but there is no shortage of dishonest attorneys and, therefore, no shortage of lawyers working at the DOJ.

The mission of the DOJ, as stated on the DOJ website, is “To enforce the law and defend the interests of the United States according to the law; to ensure public safety against threats foreign and domestic; to provide federal leadership in preventing and controlling crime; to seek just punishment for those guilty of unlawful behavior, and to ensure fair and impartial administration of justice for all Americans.”

The “fair and impartial administration of justice” seems to be a leap, particularly when the entire weight of federal law enforcement has been directed against parents who (gasp) care about the kind of public education their children are receiving.

As a case in point, Mr. Scott Smith (Loudoun County, Virginia) attended a school board meeting as a parent in June 2021.  Mr. Smith’s concern was the rape of his daughter by a “transgender boy” in the girl’s bathroom at Stone Bridge High School.  The school district issued Smith a no-trespassing order before the meeting that forbade him from telling his story — part of an elaborate cover-up by the school district to hide the fact of the rape of Mr. Smith’s daughter.

Since Smith violated the no-trespass order, police arrested him.  And, of course, a leftist anti-Fa thug at the school board meeting vocally accused Smith’s daughter of lying, and the school board announced that no rape occurred, period.  Except that a rape kit proved that a rape had occurred.

The same “transgender” boy committed another rape a few months later.

This incident may never have come to the attention of the DO(?) were it not for the fact that the National School Board Association wrote a letter to President Joe Biden complaining about parents “speaking out” at school board meetings.  The letter specifically cited Mr. Smith’s “run-in” with the Loudoun County School Board and claims explicitly “that parents’ protests and speeches at school board meetings could be equivalent to a form of domestic terrorism.”

President Biden subsequently handed the letter to AG Merrick Garland (of Chicago, Illinois), a former federal judge of the U.S. Circuit Court of the District of Columbia.  Mr. Garland then wrote a memo to the FBI directing them (and other federal and state agencies) to “take measures” to address “criminal conduct” directed toward school personnel.  Apparently, Garland intends to “shut parents up” about the rape of their children and also critical race theory.

Note that the United States Attorney General has no authority over “state agencies,” which causes some wonderment on my part why no states have sued Garland for overstepping his federal authority.

Developing Trends

In the early morning hours of 6 November 2021, Biden’s/Garland’s FBI raided the home of James O’Keefe, founder of Project Veritas.  Federal agents collected his cell phone, reporter’s notes, copies of his communications with his lawyers, and confidential health information.  Within a few days of this raid, the New York Times published O’Keefe’s cell phone data.

A year before, O’Keefe filed a lawsuit against the New York Times for defamation over a report he publicized about ballot harvesting in Minnesota.  How federal authorities “justified” their raid in November 2021 was the “suspicion” of the theft of Ashley Biden’s diary, wherein she allegedly recalls “taking inappropriate showers with her father, Joe Biden.”

Presently, a jurisdictional court is curious how federal authorities obtained confidential legal communications between O’Keefe and his attorneys, but if the judge is a Biden appointee, it is a question that may never be answered.

Democrats, be thou ever so foul

This is not a recent problem.  During the Obama administration, the DO(?) pulled out all the stops in prosecuting political commentator Dinesh D’Souza, charging him with one felony count of making an “illegal” contribution to New York senate candidate Wendy Long.  D’Souza maintained that it was “political payback” for his general criticism of the Obama administration and Hillary Clinton.

Judge Richard M. Berman, a Clinton appointee, rejected D’Souza’s claim.  Berman sentenced D’Souza to eight months in a halfway house, five years’ probation, and a fine of $30,000.00.  No doubt D’Souza imagined the political payback scheme, which Clinton appointee Berman discounted out of hand.

Some Interesting History

Early in the department’s existence, harsh measures were meted out to political opponents and those who steadfastly resisted official policies.  Because the department seemed omniscient and omnipotent, the country reacted with fear and trepidation over the influence and reach of the investigative arm.  In many sections of the country, the department sought to suppress any source of political ideology other than its own and set out to muzzle churches and religious lay-leaders.

Even parents, who had concerns about what their children were learning in public schools, and their children’s safety, were squashed.  They were “traitors,” you see … and even the president referred to these people as “destroyers.”

Now for some common sense.  If you have an entire building full of federal prosecutors (93 at last count), do you end up with “prosecutions,” or do you end up with “justice?”  Where is the balance in this one massively powerful agency?

Oh, wait a minute.  Sorry.  The first paragraph immediately above was about the Gestapo in World War II.  Darn it.  Well, perhaps you’ll understand how I became confused.  Never mind, then.  I now return you to your regularly scheduled programming.

Mustang also blogs at Fix Bayonets and Thoughts From Afar