Faith in DOJ plum­mets as Biden, par­don­ing Hunter, joins Trump in denounc­ing the depart­ment

Let’s face it, trust in most of our gov­ern­ment insti­tu­tions has utter­ly col­lapsed.

Many peo­ple don’t have faith in the FDA, the DOD, HUD, Home­land Secu­ri­ty, the health agen­cies, and the list goes on. And they don’t trust the media to deliv­er basic facts about Wash­ing­ton with­out bias and blun­ders.

These sen­ti­ments have basi­cal­ly been grow­ing for the last 60 years, since the lies about Viet­nam merged with the lies about Water­gate and forced Richard Nixon to resign.

BIDEN, TRUMP BOTH RIP DOJ AFTER PRESIDENT PARDONS HUNTER

But the most sen­si­tive fed­er­al agency, every­one would agree, is the Jus­tice Depart­ment, includ­ing the FBI. Don­ald Trump has been attack­ing these agen­cies for years (along with the “fake news”), accus­ing them of polit­i­cal­ly per­se­cut­ing him. He cam­paigned out­side cour­t­hous­es by telling reporters the pros­e­cu­tors and judges were awful peo­ple who were out to get him sole­ly because he was the lead­ing can­di­date to win back the White House.

Joe Biden, by break­ing his promise not to par­don his son Hunter, did more than just lie. He ripped his own DOJ for “selec­tive­ly and unfair­ly pros­e­cut­ing” his son. 

I used to patrol the end­less hall­ways of the J. Edgar Hoover build­ing as the Jus­tice Depart­ment beat reporter. On the crim­i­nal side, it is sup­posed to be inde­pen­dent, since Jus­tice often winds up inves­ti­gat­ing the admin­is­tra­tion. Back in the day it was filled with fair-mind­ed career pros­e­cu­tors who pur­sued legit­i­mate leads regard­less of par­ty.

In say­ing that Hunter Biden was sin­gled out for harsh treat­ment, the out­go­ing pres­i­dent is mak­ing the same argu­ment as the incom­ing pres­i­dent, that the depart­ment is bad­ly biased. Lit­tle won­der that so many peo­ple don’t trust DOJ.

All Biden had to do when repeat­ed­ly asked about a par­don or com­mu­ta­tion was “I’m not going to dis­cuss hypo­thet­i­cals.” Then at least he wouldn’t have the lying part.

There is no ques­tion that Pam Bon­di, despite some rough­ing up, will be the next attor­ney gen­er­al, hav­ing pre­cise­ly the expe­ri­ence (Flori­da AG, career pros­e­cu­tor) that Matt Gaetz so bla­tant­ly lacked. She is not going to blow up the depart­ment.

But in pick­ing Kash Patel to run the FBI – and ignor­ing that Chris Wray is not through with his 10-year term – Trump is send­ing a very dif­fer­ent mes­sage. And this isn’t some dark secret. It’s in the nominee’s own words.

TRUMP HIT FOR HIRING LOYALISTS LIKE PAM BONDI: DOESN’T EVERY PRESIDENT DO THAT?

Patel has vowed to shut down the bureau’s Wash­ing­ton head­quar­ters. He said last year on Steve Bannon’s pod­cast, which we played on “Media Buzz”: “We will go out and find the conspirators…not just in gov­ern­ment, but in the media.… Whether it’s crim­i­nal­ly or civil­ly, we’ll fig­ure that out.”

In his 2022 book “Gov­ern­ment Gang­sters,” Patel names 60 peo­ple as part of the deep state,  “a cabal of unelect­ed tyrants…the most dan­ger­ous threat to our democ­ra­cy.” The press has dubbed this an ene­mies list.

It includes the afore­men­tioned Bill Barr (for block­ing his appoint­ment), NSC chair­man John Bolton (an “arro­gant con­trol freak”), and Defense Sec­re­tary Mark Esper (who tried to fire him).

Also on the list, as recount­ed by the New Repub­lic:

Joe Biden. 

Kamala Har­ris.

Hillary Clin­ton.

Mer­rick Gar­land.

Saman­tha Pow­er, who now runs the Agency for Inter­na­tion­al Devel­op­ment.

For­mer Oba­ma offi­cials James Clap­per; John Bren­nan; Peter Str­zok (who trashed Trump in texts with his FBI girl­friend, Lisa Page), Andrew McCabe (FBI deputy direc­tor), Eric Hold­er and Loret­ta Lynch.

A strik­ing num­ber are Don­ald Trump’s own appointees: Pat Cip­polone (his White House coun­sel). Gina Haspel (his CIA direc­tor). Mark Esper. Charles Kup­per­man (his deputy nation­al secu­ri­ty advis­er).

TRUMP DROPPED MATT GAETZ AFTER COMPLAINING ABOUT HIGH POLITICAL COST OF DEFENDING HIM

Cas­sidy Hutchin­son (Mark Mead­ows’ top aide, who crit­i­cized Trump in her tes­ti­mo­ny before the House Jan. 6 com­mit­tee).

It’s a pret­ty big list. And hav­ing worked for Trump hard­ly pro­vides immu­ni­ty.

Patel would have his work cut out for him, though he’d have to get a career pros­e­cu­tor to sub­mit a wire­tap request or search war­rant to the courts.

Mean­while, many Demo­c­ra­t­ic law­mak­ers are hit­ting their party’s pres­i­dent pret­ty hard for the Hunter par­don, in inter­views with the Times.

Col­orado Con­gress­man Jason Crow: He promised he would not do this. I think it will make it hard­er for us going for­ward when we talk about uphold­ing democ­ra­cy.”

Wash­ing­ton Con­gress­woman Marie Glue­senkamp Perez: “The pres­i­dent made the wrong deci­sion. No fam­i­ly should be above the law.”

Col­orado Sen. Michael Ben­net said the Biden move “put per­son­al inter­est ahead of duty and fur­ther erodes Amer­i­cans’ faith that the jus­tice sys­tem is fair and equal for all.” And his late dropout from the race was also “putting his per­son­al inter­est ahead of his respon­si­bil­i­ty to the coun­try.”

Ver­mont Sen. Peter Welch: “Pres­i­dent Biden’s par­don of his son Hunter is, as the action of a lov­ing father, under­stand­able — but as the action of our nation’s chief exec­u­tive, unwise.” 

Michi­gan Sen. Gary Peters: “Wrong.”

Pret­ty brac­ing stuff.

Some pro­gres­sives defend­ed Biden, such as Texas Con­gress­woman Jas­mine Crock­ett: “Way to go Joe!” She said a 34-count con­vict­ed felon is about to walk into the White House, per­haps miss­ing the news that Jack Smith has dropped the charges.

On “Morn­ing Joe” yes­ter­day, Mika Brzezin­s­ki, while say­ing she wished Biden hadn’t promised no par­don, took on the cov­er­age: “You look at what has hap­pened on the Trump side, espe­cial­ly if you even par­al­lel par­dons that Trump has done him­self, it’s just always so — it seems so hys­ter­i­cal­ly imbal­anced!”

Joe Scar­bor­ough spoke of “the frus­tra­tion that many Democ­rats are hav­ing on the New York Times, The Wash­ing­ton Post, the Wall Street Jour­nal, a lot of main­stream orga­ni­za­tions blow­ing this up to the size that they believe is real­ly out of pro­por­tion, giv­en every­thing Don­ald Trump has done in the past and what he’s doing right now.”

Still, the two pres­i­dents have wound up in the same place in their view of the Jus­tice Depart­ment as par­ti­san and politi­cized.

One fas­ci­nat­ing tid­bit dug up by the Times: When Biden had Trump to the White House, accord­ing to three sources, and lis­tened to his famil­iar griev­ances about the biased DOJ – the pres­i­dent-elect “sur­prised his host by sym­pa­thiz­ing with the Biden family’s own trou­bles with the depart­ment.”