Stew­art Asks Sal­ly Yates If Bush-Era DOJ To Blame For Politi­ciza­tion

For­mer Oba­ma deputy-turned-act­ing attor­ney gen­er­al dur­ing the first days of the first Trump Admin­is­tra­tion, Sal­ly Yates is the poster child of Jus­tice Depart­ment politi­ciza­tion. She famous­ly made her­self a mar­tyr by forc­ing Trump to fire her after she ordered the depart­ment not to enforce his trav­el ban order. Still, when Yates trav­eled over to Com­e­dy Cen­tral on Mon­day, The Dai­ly Show’s Jon Stew­art asked her if the Bush-era DOJ was the one to blame for politi­ciza­tion.

Yates insist­ed that the depart­ment is full of high-mind­ed indi­vid­u­als who sim­ply care about jus­tice, lead­ing Stew­art to ask:

Did you see in your time when you were there? Did you see the mis­sion begin to change? Did you see it become politi­cized? While we were there? When you first start­ed, was it much more nuts and bolts? Because I guess that is not the part of the Jus­tice Depart­ment, Depart­ment of Jus­tice, that I also think about. I also think about after 9/11, you know, John Yoo get­ting the Depart­ment of Jus­tice to jus­ti­fy tor­ture or, you know, is there anoth­er hall­way, where, like, there’s anoth­er Depart­ment of Jus­tice, where, like, you guys are work­ing on human traf­fick­ing, but they’re there try­ing to jus­ti­fy oth­er maybe less, what you would say, high-mind­ed things?

On one hand, the Bush Admin­is­tra­tion want­ed to get infor­ma­tion out of ter­ror­ist detainees, on the oth­er Yates thought the Con­sti­tu­tion revolved around her unelect­ed self. For Stew­art, the for­mer is some­how worse. As for Yates, she gave a non-answer and instead tried to wax poet­ic about the depart­ment, “Yeah. Look, the vast major­i­ty of folks of the Depart­ment of Jus­tice are what they call career employ­ees. That does­n’t mean that they are nec­es­sar­i­ly—”

After some quips from Stew­art about the “deep state” being “a state that is very deep,” Yates con­tin­ued, “There lit­er­al­ly are maybe 100, well, if you count U.S. attor­neys, there are a few hun­dred polit­i­cal appointees out of 113,000 employ­ees at the Depart­ment of Jus­tice.”

Still try­ing to con­vince every­one she’s not a par­ti­san fig­ure, she added, “So, yeah, the hall­ways there are filled with peo­ple who don’t even know—I mean, I worked for over 20 years in the Atlanta U.S. Attor­ney’s office, I had no idea whether the folks next to me were Democ­rats or Repub­li­cans.”

Lat­er in their dis­cus­sion, Stew­art tried to sum­ma­rize, “I think what you were get­ting to is it’s a sys­tem that has flaws but that every day, we have worked towards, boy, you hate to say a more per­fect union, but that you’ve worked towards mak­ing it more just.”

After Yates affirmed that, Stew­art won­dered, “So, why is this a threat, when you just said, like, the threat now?”

Yates replied that “The threat now, and this is not because he’s a Repub­li­can, Don­ald Trump pos­es a unique threat to our crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem, and to that con­cept of equal jus­tice. He’s made real­ly clear, over and over again, that he views the Depart­ment of Jus­tice as his own per­son­al goon squad… he wants to use the pow­er of the state to lit­er­al­ly crim­i­nal­ly inves­ti­gate them and try to send them to prison and he’s been real­ly clear about that.”

Stew­art tried to play devil’s advo­cate, “Would­n’t he say that is what was done to him? That, because he was a can­di­date for pres­i­dent, that, in his mind, and I am not sug­gest­ing I’m in his mind, but that’s what he believes the Rus­sia inves­ti­ga­tion, that is what he believes all of these cas­es, whether we believe them to be mer­i­to­ri­ous or not, what he would sug­gest is, an unprece­dent­ed use of the Depart­ment of Jus­tice is how they have been oper­at­ing against him, and so that fire­wall is already been breached.”

Yates was unsym­pa­thet­ic, “Well, first of all, if he thinks that, and I’m not 100 per­cent con­vinced he gen­uine­ly thinks that, but even if he does, that does­n’t make it true. Are you telling me that when some­one foment­ed in insur­rec­tion as he did, that DOJ should just look away from that and not inves­ti­gate it?”

Of course, his­to­ry did not begin on Jan­u­ary 6, and if the left wants to make the case that Trump is a threat to the rule of the law, the woman who tried to use the DOJ to obstruct Trump and make her­self famous because she didn’t like his immi­gra­tion plans is the worst pos­si­ble per­son to make that case.

Here is a tran­script for the Decem­ber 2 show:

Com­e­dy Cen­tral The Dai­ly Show

12/2/2024

11:25 PM ET

JON STEWART: Did you see in your time when you were there? Did you see the mis­sion begin to change? Did you see it become politi­cized? While we were there? When you first start­ed, was it much more nuts and bolts? Because I guess that is not the part of the Jus­tice Depart­ment, Depart­ment of Jus­tice, that I also think about. I also think about after 9/11, you know, John Yoo get­ting the Depart­ment of Jus­tice to jus­ti­fy tor­ture or, you know, is there anoth­er hall­way, where, like, there’s anoth­er Depart­ment of Jus­tice, where, like, you guys are work­ing on human traf­fick­ing, but they’re there try­ing to jus­ti­fy oth­er maybe less, what you would say, high-mind­ed things?

YATES: Yeah. Look, the vast major­i­ty of folks of the Depart­ment of Jus­tice are what they call career employ­ees. That does­n’t mean that they are nec­es­sar­i­ly –

STEWART: I’ve heard of the deep state. Deep State. I know what this is.

YATES: I’m not even entire­ly sure what the deep state is, but—

STEWART: It is a state that is very deep! Don’t play dumb with us!

YATES: But that is — there lit­er­al­ly are maybe 100, well, if you count U.S. attor­neys, there are a few hun­dred polit­i­cal appointees out of 113,000 employ­ees at the Depart­ment of Jus­tice.

STEWART: There’s 113—

YATES: Thou­sand. Because under­stand, this includes not just the folks who are pros­e­cu­tors and lawyers there. It includes inves­tiga­tive agen­cies like the FBI and the ATF and the DEA and the Mar­shall ser­vice. It includes all of the Bureau of Pris­ons. It’s a lot of peo­ple. So it’s a very, very small num­ber of peo­ple who change with admin­is­tra­tions and change depend­ing on who the par­ty is. So, yeah, the hall­ways there are filled with peo­ple who don’t even know — I mean, I worked for over 20 years in the Atlanta U.S. Attor­ney’s office, I had no idea whether the folks next to me were Democ­rats or Repub­li­cans.

…

STEWART: I think what you were get­ting to is it’s a sys­tem that has flaws but that every day, we have worked towards, boy, you hate to say a more per­fect union, but that you’ve worked towards mak­ing it more just.

YATES: Absolute­ly. And that has been the goal. And so,—

STEWART: So, why is this a threat, when you just said, like, the threat now?

YATES: Yeah. The threat now, and this is not because he’s a Repub­li­can, Don­ald Trump pos­es a unique threat to our crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem, and to that con­cept of equal jus­tice. He’s made real­ly clear, over and over again, that he views the Depart­ment of Jus­tice as his own per­son­al goon squad, for lack of a bet­ter term here, to go after the peo­ple that he wants to retal­i­ate against, whether those are folks who have crossed him polit­i­cal­ly, whether it is peo­ple who just dis­agreed with him, whether it is peo­ple who would­n’t car­ry his water. That he wants to use the pow­er of the state to lit­er­al­ly crim­i­nal­ly inves­ti­gate them and try to send them to prison and he’s been real­ly clear about that. He—

STEWART: As dev­il’s advo­cate —

YATES: I fig­ured this was com­ing.

STEWART: Alright. Would­n’t he say that is what was done to him? That, because he was a can­di­date for pres­i­dent, that, in his mind, and I am not sug­gest­ing I’m in his mind, but that’s what he believes the Rus­sia inves­ti­ga­tion, that is what he believes all of these cas­es, whether we believe them to be mer­i­to­ri­ous or not, what he would sug­gest is, an unprece­dent­ed use of the Depart­ment of Jus­tice is how they have been oper­at­ing against him, and so that fire­wall is already been breached. In his mind.

YATES: Well, first of all, if he thinks that, and I’m not 100 per­cent con­vinced he gen­uine­ly thinks that, but even if he does, that does­n’t make it true. 

STEWART: Right.

YATES: Are you telling me that when some­one foment­ed in insur­rec­tion as he did, that DOJ should just look away from that and not inves­ti­gate it?

STEWART: No.