Sunday, July 21, 2024

Project 2025 - Wakeup!

Project 2025's (here) Presidential Transition Project, a Report coming from the Heritage Foundation, is a disappointing work that is surprisingly coming from an organization that spent time in its past to do reports on topics such as Overcriminalization, working in a bipartisan approach to study correctable and needed areas of the law. This Report, however, is clearly partisan, describes itself as such ("conservative"), but most importantly makes statements that in some instances ignores a basic principle of Socrates - "He who asserts, must prove." (Podgor adds - he, she, or they who assert much prove).   

Focusing here on only one part of the Report, The Department of Justice, the opening statement is accurate - "The Department of Justice (DOJ) has a long and noble history." (p. 545)  But so many of the statements thereafter are unsupported and present a biased approach that will in fact lead to politicizing this branch of government. This commentary only points out three items related to politics and the importance of maintaining a political-free zone in the DOJ:

  1. The Report calls for the elimination of the ten year term of the FBI director.  It states "[t]he Director of the FBI must remain politically accountable to the President in the same manner as the head of any other federal department or agency." (p. 550-551) To claim a desire to depoliticize the DOJ and then make the FBI Director politically accountable to the President puts politics into the office. Having the FBI director serve a 10 year term, thus allowing this person to cross over political administrations takes the officeholder outside the political executive and places him or her accountable to the people.  The absurdity of what this Report calls for here is obvious. 
  2. The Report states, "[t]he department has failed to do its part to stop the flood of fentanyl and other deadly drugs that are flowing across our borders and decimating families and communities across the United States." (p. 550). Yes, there continue to be drugs in the United States, and probably always will be.  But let us not forget that to stop drugs there needs to be more prosecutions.  Yet, drug prosecutions under the last administration were at a historic low (see here).
  3. And the DOJ has come a long way from a past that included politics.  Perhaps some have forgotten "An Investigation of Allegations of Politicized Hiring in the Department of Justice Honors Program and Summer Law Intern Program" from 2002-2006. (see here). Some of us do remember when AG Michael Mukasey appropriately responded to the complaints. (see here)

There is so much more that one could comment upon in this Report, and that commentary would not be favorable to this Report.  One hopes that Congress will give a closer eye (be more skeptical) to Heritage Reports if this is the calibar of work coming from this organization. 

(esp) 

https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/whitecollarcrime_blog/2024/07/project-2025-wakeup.html

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