Barbara McQuade and Daniel Richman on Trump’s Politicization of the DOJ

Summary

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The Al Franken Podcast

Episode: Barbara McQuade and Daniel Richman on Trump’s Politicization of the DOJ

Date: August 24, 2025

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Overview

In this episode, Al Franken is joined by former U.S. Attorney Barbara McQuade (University of Michigan Law) and former federal prosecutor Daniel Richman (Columbia Law School) to discuss the sweeping politicization of the Department of Justice (DOJ) under Donald Trump's second administration. The conversation examines how firing key prosecutors, appointing loyalists, weaponizing investigations against political rivals, and undermining DOJ norms threatens American institutions. The guests share their insider perspectives based on decades of service, offering a sobering look at the consequences for nonpartisan law enforcement and the rule of law.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The DOJ’s Shift to Partisanship under Trump

Timestamps: [01:05]–[07:01]

• Barbara McQuaid highlights how Trump’s actions—starting with his campaign rhetoric and continuing through executive orders—have reframed the DOJ's investigatory mission as one driven by grievance and revenge.
• Trump issued executive orders to investigate former officials (e.g., Biden, Obama, Comey, Letitia James) without evidentiary predication, going against standard DOJ practices.
• McQuaid underscores the DOJ’s longstanding norms after Watergate, such as prohibiting political considerations in prosecutions and limiting White House-DOJ communication, which have now been disregarded.
• Quote:

  “We are seeing an actual weaponization of the Department of Justice using law enforcement tools to go after political rivals ... That to me is disinformation and a weaponization.”
  – Barbara McQuaid [05:07]

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2. Professionalism vs. Politicization: Then and Now

Timestamps: [07:11]–[13:30]

• Both guests reflect on their DOJ tenures, stressing the historical insulation of prosecutions from partisan interference.
• Daniel Richman notes the Southern District of New York's legacy of independence, now threatened by administration overreach and threats to career staff.
• The firing and intimidation of prosecutors involved in the January 6th cases sends a chilling message, emphasizing loyalty over professionalism.
• Quote:

  “They worry properly that they may touch a case that for some reason the administration wants to push forward or ... kill, and they'll be caught in that.”
  – Daniel Richman [11:20]

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3. Trump’s Appointments: Qualifications & Loyalty

Timestamps: [12:24]–[14:25]; [31:22]–[33:08]

• The appointment of individuals like Pam Bondi and Kash Patel, valued for loyalty over competence, is described as unprecedented.
• Firings are not limited by professional performance—those dismissed include experienced prosecutors and FBI agents involved in politically sensitive cases.
• Quote:

  “It's not just loyalty ... Loyalty is judged for having just done your work in a prior administration in a way that is now deemed not to the liking of this administration.”
  – Daniel Richman [14:25]

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4. Undermining Judicial Independence

Timestamps: [16:22]–[21:49]

• Trump’s attacks on judges (notably Judge Boasberg) following unfavorable rulings illustrate the broader tactic of delegitimizing judicial authority.
• Efforts include ethical complaints and orchestrated campaigns, regardless of factual basis, to rally supporters and undermine public trust.
• Allies target judicial oversight as “unchecked” interference, turning routine legal disagreements into political theater.
• Quote:

  “Voters may have chosen to prefer immigration enforcement, but they did not give him a mandate to dispense with the law or the Constitution.”
  – Barbara McQuaid [18:25]

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5. Law Firms Under Pressure

Timestamps: [21:10]–[25:00]

• Law firms representing Trump opponents face intimidation, economic threats, and reputational risks.
• Top law students increasingly avoid firms that caved under pressure, while others see a business case for compliance.
• McQuaid emphasizes not blaming the victim: while firms making difficult choices face criticism, the real issue is the administration’s abuse of power.
• Quote:

  “It's important not to lose sight of who is the real wrongdoer here, and that is the Trump administration, not the law firms who ... have been forced to make some very difficult choices.”
  – Barbara McQuaid [24:23]

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6. The Firing of Prosecutors & Unprecedented Overreach

Timestamps: [25:00]–[28:49]

• Lawyers tied to the January 6th prosecutions and high-profile Trump cases (e.g., Maureen Comey—Ghislaine Maxwell prosecutor) have been terminated without due process, violating civil service protections.
• The administration asserts a “unitary executive” theory as justification, threatening long-standing merit-based hiring and firing standards.
• Quote:

  “We have developed ... the professional civil service and independent experts ... Donald Trump is just blowing that up without any approval.”
  – Barbara McQuaid [26:46]

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7. Erosion of DOJ Effectiveness & Public Trust

Timestamps: [28:49]–[30:52]

• The DOJ’s reliance on jurors, witnesses, and local officials means that lost credibility can begin to unravel the entire legal system.
• If DOJ’s neutrality is doubted, public and institutional cooperation falters; Trump’s politicization threatens to regress to a “pre-DOJ” era of law enforcement.
• Lack of congressional pushback, especially from Republicans, compounds the problem.
• Quote:

  “When they lose confidence in the apolitical workings of the department ... the whole system unravels.”
  – Daniel Richman [29:01]

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8. Novelty & Consequences of Trump’s DOJ

Timestamps: [31:15]–[33:08]

• U.S. attorney appointments reflect unprecedented partisanship—figures like Alina Habba and Jeanine Pirro stand out as particularly political picks.
• Overlap between prosecution, PR, and political objectives is now explicit, deviating sharply from even previous Republican administrations.
• Quote:

  “It's so unusual to see US Attorneys acting in such a blatantly political way.”
  – Barbara McQuaid [32:32]

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9. Weaponized Investigations as Political Theater

Timestamps: [35:21]–[45:43]

• Trump’s DOJ launches investigations into Obama and others based on fabricated or insignificant allegations, with the process serving merely as spectacle.
• Investigations (e.g., Russia “helping” Trump) serve narrative purposes, regardless of their legal merit or potential outcome.
• Quote:

  “The deliverable is the announcement of the investigation. That’s what they’re going for. They’re not going to find anything. I’m not even sure they’re really looking.”
  – Daniel Richman [41:42]

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10. The Epstein/Maxwell Saga: Political Leverage

Timestamps: [37:34]–[40:19]; [55:02]–[56:52]

• Todd Blanche, Trump’s former criminal attorney and current Deputy AG, personally interviews Ghislaine Maxwell, which is highly irregular.
• Maxwell’s move to a minimum-security facility and the possibility of a presidential pardon suggest the DOJ’s use of the case to clear Trump’s name rather than pursue justice or support victims.
• The sidelining of experienced prosecutors (e.g., Maureen Comey) raises concerns about fair process and the intention behind such DOJ actions.
• Quote:

  “There’s no legitimate law enforcement reason for Todd Blanche to be meeting with Ghislaine Maxwell at this stage ... It appears [to] address a political scandal.”
  – Barbara McQuaid [38:21]

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11. Prioritizing Immigration Over Serious Crime

Timestamps: [46:14]–[51:07]

• DOJ and Homeland Security agents are diverted from complex crimes (organized crime, white-collar crime) to immigration roundups and minor offenses—a clear distortion of federal law enforcement missions.
• Orders to arrest thousands per day, often targeting non-dangerous immigrants, are described as “Mr. Cruelty is the point.”
• Quote:

  “Now it’s ... park in front of the school as kids get dropped off or go to the courtroom where someone is checking in ... and then arresting them. And even churches ...”
  – Al Franken and Barbara McQuaid [50:51]

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12. Changing Recruitment and the Future of the DOJ

Timestamps: [56:57]–[58:19]

• New DOJ hiring under Trump requires loyalty oaths and essays praising the president’s agenda, embedding loyalists throughout the civil service.
• The guests worry about the long-term impact: when future administrations arrive, will they purge these hires, thereby further corrupting a system built on nonpartisanship?
• Quote:

  “The new hiring policy requires new employees to do these fawning essays about Donald Trump ... They use the term ‘burrowed.’ Burrowed in for decades to come.”
  – Barbara McQuaid [57:22]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

Al Franken, opening:
“They're here to discuss how Trump's unprecedented takeover of the Justice Department has dangerously undermined its credibility ... hiring sycophants like Pam Bondi, who has announced investigations Trump asked for, regardless of whether there is any evidence ...”
[01:05]

Daniel Richman, on firings:
“... now that the president has delegated personnel decisions to a podcaster, no offense to podcasters.”
[25:42]

Barbara McQuaid, on the long-term effects:
“Elections, as they say, have consequences, Al. And we're living them.”
[51:57]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Introduction to the problem and guests: [01:05]–[03:32]
• DOJ norms & Trump’s weaponization: [03:32]–[07:01]
• Experiences under prior administrations: [07:01]–[13:30]
• Trump’s DOJ appointments & loyalty tests: [12:24]–[14:25]; [31:22]–[33:08]
• Targeting judges & law firms, and their consequences: [16:22]–[25:00]
• Firing of prosecutors, erosion of civil service: [25:00]–[28:49]
• Broader consequences for justice, norm erosion: [28:49]–[33:08]
• Political investigations (e.g., Obama, Russia, Maxwell): [35:21]–[45:43]
• Resource misallocation (immigration vs. serious crime): [46:14]–[51:07]
• Embedding loyalists for the future: [56:57]–[58:19]

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Tone

The conversation is urgent, at times darkly wry, but grounded in deep professional experience and concern for American institutions. Al Franken steers the conversation with pointed questions and occasional humor; both guests speak in clear, direct terms, sparing no criticism, but also expressing sorrow for the erosion of DOJ’s proud traditions.

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This summary covers all the significant themes and arguments in the episode, capturing the insights and quoted language of the participants for listeners who want a comprehensive understanding without having heard the episode.

Transcript

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[Al Franken]

Hey everybody, we've got a great one for you today. You know, for a change, the great Barbara McQuaid joins us. You know her as the former U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan and now a law professor at the University of Michigan. And joining her is Daniel Richmond, who was a federal prosecutor in the Southern District of New York and is now a professor at Columbia Law School. They're here to discuss how Trump's unprecedented takeover of the Justice Department has dangerously undermined its credibility, whether it's by firing so many of the federal prosecutors who took on the January 6th offenders, or hiring sycophants like Pam Bondi, who has announced investigations Trump asked for, regardless of whether there is any evidence to support them. I mean, do you really think the Justice Department is going to prosecute Barack Obama for making it look like Russia was supporting Trump in the 2016 election? One problem, of course, is that Russia did try to help Trump beat Hillary Clinton. Was the announcement of the Obama investigation the beginning and end of it? And how do you think the professionals who are still in the Justice Department feel about having to lend their credibility to to prosecute Trump's agenda? And we've all been watching the Epstein saga unfold. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanch, who happened to also be Trump's criminal attorney, went down to Florida to interview Ghislaine Maxwell, who has since been moved to a minimum security prison. Why would she be getting this sweet deal? Could it have something to do with Trump's hopes that she he can clear his name? And will his supporters buy it? So I wanted to talk with veterans of the Justice Department to get some insider perspectives on the weaponization of the department, the damage it is doing and the years it may take to fix it. We'll be right back with Barbara McQuaid and Daniel Richmond. It's a great one, you know, for a change. Barbara, thank you for joining me again. Great to have you back.

[Barbara McQuaid]

Thanks, Al. Great to be here.

[Al Franken]

And Daniel, welcome to the show.

[Daniel Richmond]

Thanks.

[Al Franken]

I want to get your views on how Trump's complete takeover of the Justice Department goes against all precedent and has undermined its credibility. Barbara, you wrote the book Attack from How Disinformation Is Sabotaging America. Does the Trump Justice Department ever dispense disinformation?

[Barbara McQuaid]

How long have you got?

[Al Franken]

Take your time. We got plenty of time. We can always add it if you go more than an hour on that.

[Barbara McQuaid]

Yes. You know, I will say it began before he retook office in 2025 in his campaigning, talking about how the Justice Department had engaged in weaponization and lawfare by charging him with crimes. Of course, those were based in evidence we saw with our own eyes. They were based on things like documents found red handed in his own home. And yet he claimed that all of that was a hoax and a witch hunt.

[Al Franken]

And he was convicted, of course, on what, 34 counts. What was it?

[Barbara McQuaid]

Absolutely in, in New York. But with regard to the federal Justice Department, you know, one of the things he did on his first day was to issue an executive order calling for accountability for this so called weapon. So in other words, what the last administration did was all wrong and all illegal. And so now we are just righting the ship by launching investigations into these people who abuse their power. That, of course, is all false.

[Al Franken]

And that's on Biden and now Obama.

[Barbara McQuaid]

Obama and Comey and, and just today I saw Letitia James. And so what we are seeing now, I think is an actual weaponization of the Department of Justice using law enforcement tools to go after political rivals. What's supposed to happen, Al, is an investigation begins when there's something called predication. That is a well grounded, factual allegation that a crime is being committed or that there is a threat to the national security. Instead, we are seeing Pam Bondi open these investigations. And based on Donald Trump's perceived grievances against his political rivals. And that to me is disinformation and a weaponization. The last thing I'll say about this is that since Watergate, there have been norms at the Justice Department to prevent this kind of political use of the.

[Al Franken]

Justice Department because Nixon used his very politically and his Attorney general went to prison.

[Barbara McQuaid]

Absolutely. So in response to that, a number of reforms were implemented throughout government, including two that I'll mention. One is something called the Justice Manual. It is the governing document for all federal prosecutors, and it has a provision that specifically prohibits prosecutors from ever considering partisan politics, positions, or associations in making charging decisions.

[Al Franken]

Oh, well, that's good. That. That should be. Keep Trump from doing that.

[Barbara McQuaid]

So that's supposed to be the governing document. The other thing that is supposed to be in place is a strict prohibition on communications between the White House and the Justice Department, so that there is not even the appearance that there is any sort of political interference in prosecutors decisions. And now we see Trump just issuing executive orders, directing these sorts of investigations, so that Norm has also been completely.

[Al Franken]

Blown up, and he's really made no bones about that. Now, you've both been in the Justice Department. Barbara, you were there for eight years, right?

[Barbara McQuaid]

With 20 altogether, an assistant U.S. attorney for 12, and then Obama's U.S. attorney for 8.

[Al Franken]

Okay. His U.S. attorney for 8. And that was the Eastern District of Michigan. Daniel, how long were you a federal prosecutor?

[Daniel Richmond]

I was there for about five and a half years back in the late 80s, early 90s. So I'm old.

[Al Franken]

Whose administration was that, Ben?

[Daniel Richmond]

I was appointed by Rudolph Giuliani, and I thought he was a great U.S. attorney. He was in many ways, since then.

[Al Franken]

And okay, what did you do in your role there?

[Daniel Richmond]

I started as everyone does in general crimes, doing all sorts of things that would come in, whether drugs or violence or baby fraud cases. Spent a lot of time on a very long organized crime trial and then did quite a few years of narcotics at a time when New York's murder rate was at its highest and we were using drug prosecutions as a way to go after serious violence in. In New York. Then I ended up as chief of appeals, where we essentially are the legal advisors to the office and shepherd cases through the Court of Appeals.

[Al Franken]

And, Barbara, as U.S. attorney, what were you responsible for?

[Barbara McQuaid]

Well, like Daniel, I was in the General Crimes Unit as a Assistant U.S. attorney and then went into national security cases. But as U.S. attorney, you sort of oversee the whole office. We had about 115 prosecutors, some doing criminal work, some doing civil enforcement, some defending the United States in cases. But we had a full range of cases, ranging from national security to public corruption, corporate fraud, civil rights, hate crimes, drug trafficking offenses. So a whole variety of cases.

[Al Franken]

So not so much political stuff. Right.

[Barbara McQuaid]

You know, public corruption. But again, it's not. It wasn't political. It was probably our Most significant case was the prosecution of the Democratic mayor of the city of Detroit, Kwame Kilpatrick, on public corruption charges. You know, I was appointed by a Democratic president, and never once did it occur to us to consider his party politics. Never once did the Justice Department or the White House suggest to me one way or the other that we should go easy on a Democrat or stick it to him as a rival. We just did the work, and that's the way it had been, and that's the way it's supposed to be.

[Al Franken]

Now, you left as U.S. attorney for Eastern Michigan after Obama left. That's how it goes, right?

[Barbara McQuaid]

Yes.

[Al Franken]

And those are political appointees, basically.

[Barbara McQuaid]

Yep.

[Al Franken]

But not in. Not where you were, Daniel. Is that less so?

[Daniel Richmond]

The U.S. attorney is very much a political appointee. They come and they go. I think the Southern District, at least until now, has always considered it very lucky that its political appointees have come from the alumni network and really have led to, you know, some variation in who they are and what administrations they come to. But every U.S. attorney has. Has really brought a deep sense of what the office represents and the importance of protecting its historic independence.

[Al Franken]

So is there a lot of continuity?

[Daniel Richmond]

There's an awful lot of continuity. And I keep on reminding myself that I served mostly under Republican presidents. It really didn't matter at all. The picture greets you as you come in the door, but that's the limit of it. Whatever agents you're dealing with, whatever prosecutors you're dealing with are all focused on the mission and trying to figure out what the right thing is and to do it, and that's it.

[Al Franken]

Is this less the case now with Trump?

[Daniel Richmond]

Yeah, I certainly fear it is. You know, to be clear, I think there a large number of assistants and FBI agents and people throughout the department who are apolitical continue to be apolitical. The only difference now is they worry properly that they may touch a case that for some reason the administration wants to push forward or wants to kill, and they'll be caught in that. Or if they exercise professional judgment in a way that is deemed after the fact not to the administration's liking, they'll be fired. I think they're trying bravely to do their job, and I assume they will until they can't, then they'll leave. Because, you know, certainly the assistance I'm aware of won't stand for the kind of crap that's coming down from Washington these days.

[Al Franken]

Let's talk about that crap. How has Trump's treatment of the Justice Department been a departure from what we've.

[Daniel Richmond]

Seen in the past, as Barbara said, this could go on for a long time. The list is long. Certainly putting manifestly unqualified people like Kash Patel at the head of the FBI is a huge departure. You know, no one's ever going to pretend that all the heads of the FBI have been perfect and masterful at their jobs. But he's somebody whose only qualification is absolute loyalty and facility with writing children's books.

[Al Franken]

Absolute loyalty seems to be the number one qualification for justice positions.

[Daniel Richmond]

Yes. And in a really twisted version of it, it's not just people who fail to follow orders, however unprofessionally oriented those orders are, but people who were just doing their jobs in the prior administration. You know, you're seeing the firing of FBI agents and the firing of AUSAs for having been involved in January 6th cases.

[Al Franken]

Were they all fired or almost all of them?

[Daniel Richmond]

I don't think. Certainly you couldn't fire all the FBI agents involved in January 6th cases because the number of agents involved in that is huge. Similarly, you couldn't fire all of the assistants in the District of Columbia who were involved in those cases. But quite a few assistants in District of Columbia have been fired. Certainly those who are on probationary terms and quite a few who had leadership roles in the FBI, those who have had important roles in marshaling those cases through have been fired. So just to pick up on your point, it's not just loyalty right now. Loyalty is judged for having just done your work in a prior administration in a way that is now deemed not to the liking of this administration.

[Al Franken]

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[Barbara McQuaid]

Yeah, I can pick up on that one. So one of the things that we have seen Trump do is when a judge issues a decision he dislikes, he goes after the judge. So he'll call them. I think he's called Boasberg a left wing lunatic and a radical Marxist and other things. He, he is anything but. He is the chief judge of the District Court for the District of Columbia. But you may recall that when the Trump administration tried to spirit those immigrants out over the weekend and during the night to Venezuela, there was a emergency hearing for a temporary restraining order that Judge Boseberg conducted virtually on a computer. He had a hearing and he ordered that no planes take off and that any planes in the air be turned around. Of course, that's when we heard people like Emil Bove and others argue that, well, because that order wasn't in writing, we didn't think it really counted. What I mean, of course it counts. Even if the judge issues it verbally, especially during a virtual hearing on a weekend, you bet it counts.

[Al Franken]

And there's a history of their ignoring orders, right?

[Barbara McQuaid]

Yes. In fact, there was a whistleblower who was working on these cases who came out and said that Beauvais, before he was confirmed as a judge on the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals, while he was a high level Justice Department official, had said, we might need to ignore court orders and we might need to tell the judge f you. And so it was against that backdrop that they proceeded to these hearings. And this whistleblower said that he was often kept in the dark about what was really happening. And so it put him in the uncomfortable position of being able of having to tell a judge he didn't know what was happening. And that's what got him suspended for failing to zealously advocate on behalf of the Justice Department. So Judge Boasberg ordered that because these men had not been given habeas corpus rights, the right to have a court review, due process, their detention and removal from the country, that he halted the planes from departing and entered a temporary restraining order. And he later began asking questions about contempt for violating his order. It was that series of decisions that caused Donald Trump to make these allegations about Judge Boasberg, that he is, you know, this leftist lunatic. And we also saw allies of Donald Trump, including J.D. vance, suggesting that it was inappropriate for a federal judge to check the power of a president who, after all, had a mandate from the voters to aggressively enforce immigration laws. Voters may have chosen to prefer immigration enforcement, but they did not give him a mandate to dispense with the law or the Constitution. And that's what this judge was upholding. And so just last week, we saw Pam Bondi issue a complaint against Judge Boasberg, who at a non public meeting with, he's a member of the Judicial Conference, which is a group of judges who get together to discuss court rules and policies as the representative of the District of Columbia as their chief judge. While he was there, he shared with Chief Justice John Roberts that his colleagues had asked him to pass along the observation that they were concerned that the Trump administration might disobey court orders, which could result in a constitutional crisis.

[Al Franken]

And that's been the case. They've ignored a lot of court orders, haven't they?

[Barbara McQuaid]

Yes. And so the problem, I think, with this complaint is, number one, the complaint against Boasberg. Now, yeah, there's nothing inaccurate about what he says, but number they accuse him of violating the canons of judicial ethics which prevent a judge or direct a judge to avoid saying anything publicly that might put the judiciary in a bad light. Now, he didn't say this publicly. He was telling the head of the judiciary what his colleagues had asked him to say. He did not say it publicly. It only got reported because someone at the meeting wrote it down and sent it to some Federalist Society muckraker who posted it online. And so I don't think this complaint is going to be successful. I don't think any judges are going to find anything meritorious about it. But what it does is it gives fodder to Trump supporters to say, oh, yeah, that judge got in trouble, I did something wrong. He's unethical, he's shady in a way that advances Trump's agenda and undermines public confidence in our judiciary.

[Al Franken]

The Trump people have, they've gone after Trump, has gone after the law firms, and these law firms try their cases in federal court or have some been banned from that if they've refused to go along with Trump?

[Daniel Richmond]

None. It's been banned from appearing in federal court. These have been orders trying to keep them out of the building and the like.

[Al Franken]

How can you try a case if you're out of the building?

[Daniel Richmond]

You can't. You know, there's a, there's a silliness to a lot of, a lot of the content of these orders. But the important move is to really put these firms under threat and make them worry about retaining their partners who are very mobile these days and whose clients might find it amiss that the firm is being targeted.

[Al Franken]

So how have the firms that caved, how have they been doing in terms of losing partners, and how are they doing in terms of recruiting young lawyers out of law school?

[Daniel Richmond]

I think it remains to be seen what the recruiting effect is going to be.

[Al Franken]

I understand that the top students are actually going to the ones that didn't.

[Daniel Richmond]

Fold to some extent. I mean, I don't want to be a great defender of the firms that folded, but essentially what you're seeing are business decisions in various ways. The firms that are primarily litigation based and aren't worried about their private equity partners moving are ready to fight. The firms who are worried, like Poll Weiss used to be a real litigation firm. It's now very much not just a litigation firm. They folded. Sussman, Godfrey, the ultimate litigation firm, are fighting away. And you know, kudos to Sussman and the, and the litigation firms that are fighting. But, but I think firms exist in part to increase profits and they act accordingly in various ways.

[Barbara McQuaid]

You know, I'll interject there for just a second, if I may. I agree in part with what Daniel's saying, and I disagree in others. One is, I can tell you, anecdotally small sample set. But some of the top students that I see at our law school are shifting. They're not applying to the law firms that caved. They are applying to the law firms that have chosen to fight. And that is, that's what I. Yes, people have left. You know, there is a young woman who is left, Scadden Arps, who's been sort of leading the charge for people who've left private firms in an effort to help them find new jobs. And, and there was a big exodus from Paul Weiss of some very top lawyers, including Damian Williams, the former U.S. attorney there. So there has been some cost to all of this to the law firms that have caved. And I think, although initially they felt it was a good business decision. What we have seen over time is that some clients have left because they don't want to be affiliated with a law firm that caved. Now, I will support what Daniel said, however, by saying this. I think it's always important not to blame the victims. And although I would like to see these law firms who have the wherewithal and have the financial resources to fight, because it's so important for the rest of us, I do feel some empathy for them. When I was working as a prosecutor in some of these public corruption cases, one of the things I saw was that oftentimes businesses felt extorted and felt the need to go along with the demands of the extortionist because they were concerned about their employees, their own families, their contracts. And if all of that got cut off financially, not only would they suffer individually, but there would be a domino effect on many people for whom they were responsible. And so it's important not to lose sight of who is the real wrongdoer here, and that is the Trump administration, not the law firms who have been targeted and have been forced to make some very difficult choices.

[Al Franken]

As for the prosecutors in the Justice Department, who has Trump fired, Is it fair to say lawyers who prosecuted January 6th cases were, by and large fired?

[Daniel Richmond]

Yes. And in New York, we certainly have the forced resignation of those who wouldn't go ahead with the quashing of the prosecution of Mayor Adams. We also had Maureen Comey being fired just recently.

[Al Franken]

And why do you think she was fired? I mean, daughter of Comey, or is it. Could it have something to do with the Epstein case, that she is the one who prosecuted Maxwell?

[Daniel Richmond]

Right? Yes, she did. I suspect that the real reason she was fired is because she was on Laura Loomer's list to be fired. And I think once one's on the list, now that the president has delegated personnel decisions to a podcaster, no offense to podcasters.

[Al Franken]

No offense taken.

[Daniel Richmond]

I think she's a podcaster. At any rate, she's certainly an influencer of the President, and that's what matters. She wanted him fired, and Maureen was fired.

[Barbara McQuaid]

And one thing that's really important to note, Daniel, is, you know, Maureen Comey and some of these others are simply getting an email that says, from Pam Bondi, effective immediately, you are hereby terminated from government service pursuant to Article 2 of the Constitution, which, of course, is just the section of the Constitution that gives the President executive power. All of these people are protected by civil service protection laws that says they can only be fired for Cause that they have appeals rights. And instead, these are just being ignored and bulldozered.

[Al Franken]

And this is. This is unusual. This is new.

[Barbara McQuaid]

Yeah, this is absolutely new. I mean, when I was working in government, I mean, terminations were very rare and required some very serious misconduct before someone would leave. And there's a reason for that. We passed the Pendleton act in this country in the late 1800s in an effort to remove this whole spoils system that had previously existed, where the president rewarded his benefactors, gave them jobs in government, and there were a bunch of hacks who didn't know how to do anything. Instead, since then, we have developed what is one of the real strengths of our government, which is the professional civil service and independent experts who are doing important work and have continuity from one administration to the next. Donald Trump is just blowing that up without any approval. There have been some lawsuits filed. We'll see how those shake out. But I think what he will argue is, under my unitary executive theory, I control the executive branch, no ifs, ands, or buts, and Congress can't tell me what to do.

[Daniel Richmond]

We're really seeing to pick up on what Barbara was saying. You know, the unitary executive theory was kicking around as a justification, at least hypothetically, in prior administrations. But now we really see a belief that one can act unilaterally, not just to overturn civil service protections, but to overturn congressional appropriations, to overturn anything that stands in the way of the president just doing what he feels like. And these theories aren't going to be tested for a while, if at all. The courts are going to be way behind this, particularly since the Supreme Court is going to shut down lower courts as they try to push back against it. So at the very best, it won't be dealt with until it gets to the Supreme Court on a merits case. And that's going to take years in many cases. So this unilateral executive theory has now been put to a use that really is, I think, devastating to not just the civil service, but to many aspects of policymaking.

[Al Franken]

What price does the Justice Department pay for clearly being so in the tank for Trump and his administration? Are they any less effective? Are judges skeptical?

[Daniel Richmond]

I think what people forget is that the Justice Department exists in a very complex network, and it relies on all sorts of entities for cooperation, whether juries, grand juries, witnesses, police, local officials, and citizens more generally. And when they lose confidence in the apolitical workings of the department, then their reactions essentially get driven by what their political preferences are. If you like, the president the cases the President brings are just fine. If you don't, you will. If you're a jury, possibly acquit. If you're a grand juror, possibly refuse to indict, the whole system unravels. And if you look at the history of federal criminal enforcement that I've been writing about from the beginning, this is the way it really was. Acquittals were a normal thing. Grand jury failures to indict were a normal thing before the creation of the justice department in 1870, and they were for some time afterwards. That's the world that I fear we might return to if this is not nipped in the bud. And the way it gets nipped in the bud is partially by these institutions pushing back. And the key mover that we don't see any action from is Congress. Congress, from the very beginning, has been the prime guardian of U.S. attorney independence.

[Al Franken]

But the Republicans in Congress don't seem to have any interest in it.

[Daniel Richmond]

Not at all. You know, just as we see when it comes to appropriations, they're essentially throwing up their hands and giving away critical institutional power. Now, can that be righted? Maybe it's going to take a little while.

[Al Franken]

It might take a midterm election.

[Daniel Richmond]

Exactly. It will take at least a midterm election. You know, once you have divided government, things work a bit better. When Bush fired all sorts of US Attorneys back in George Bush and his administration, once the Democrats took control of the Senate, you had hearings that really pushed back hard on what the administration did, and that could be the case again. But you need divided government.

[Al Franken]

So how different is the Trump Justice Department from, say, the Bush Justice Department?

[Barbara McQuaid]

Well, one thing I would point out is the nature of the appointees to U.S. attorney positions. So think about some of the people that we have seen nominated by Donald Trump. Alina Haba in New Jersey, his former attorney, who doesn't seem like a particularly good attorney. She was sanctioned. She was scolded by a judge. She didn't even seem to know how the rules of evidence worked. And there she is in New Jersey, and I might add, on her first or second day on the job, doing something that all US Attorneys are told to. To stay away from, and that is cosplaying as an agent. By participating in arrest, you're inserting yourself as a witness. You're doing something you're not trained to do. And there she was, you know, making nice pictures for social media. She also, during an interview in one of her. Her stays in the job, said that she would help turn New Jersey Red which again is not the job of a U.S. attorney, but who is supposed to be apolitical. We've got Jeanine Pirro in Washington, D.C. and she's there only because there was one pushback. That was Eagle Ed Martin, who was serving as an interim and was using his office as an intimidation factory by sending out letters to politicians and even Georgetown Law School in an effort to control what he saw as their woke agenda. It's so unusual to see US Attorneys acting in such a blatantly political way. I worked in the Department of Justice under Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and for a smidge, Donald Trump. And you know, in those pre Trump eras, as Daniel said earlier, you had professionalism. Regardless of who was the U.S. attorney, all of that has changed during this administration.

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[Al Franken]

These officials who say that Trump wants to hold wrongdoers from previous administrations accountable, like Obama, what is the case against Obama that they're.

[Daniel Richmond]

We can't help you. I mean, this goes to what Barbara was saying about predication. You need to be able to, at the very least, give a straight face description of maybe possible evidence before a case should even be thought about.

[Al Franken]

I mean, he's basically accused of falsifying the story that the Russians favored Trump, right?

[Barbara McQuaid]

Yeah, yeah.

[Al Franken]

But they did. And it's been proven, right?

[Daniel Richmond]

Yes. And if he wants to Trump, if this meeting ever happens, which I'm not so sure it will, he can ask Putin clearly about Putin's efforts when he meets with him next week or the week after. I mean, it really is quite amazing to me that even assuming there was no grand plot on the part of Trump to really work with Putin, the extent of evidence that Putin will have in his possession of, whether it's involving Paul Manafort or the meeting in Trump Tower, that we have a sense of, but we don't have a full sense of.

[Al Franken]

Well, I don't think Putin's gonna be any more forthright and truthful in his. Yes, okay. Of course. Of course. I was gonna say then Ghislaine Maxwell, I mean, she. That is amazing.

[Daniel Richmond]

I'm enjoying every minute of that, and I hate to say enjoy, about a horrendous series of crimes that she was very much a part of that have had a devastating effect on so many people. But the small bit of humor I'm deriving is from the administration's inability to deal with this case because you need credibility to deal with it. If you had a line prosecutor who really could stand up. And yes, it is interesting that Maureen Comey could have been that lying prosecutor.

[Al Franken]

Well, they wouldn't want her to be questioning Maxwell now. They chose the right guy to do that. Todd.

[Daniel Richmond]

Todd Blanche.

[Al Franken]

Yeah.

[Daniel Richmond]

It's far from clear to me, and probably to a whole lot of people that what he was seeking from her is the truth as opposed to things that will be useful to the administration. When you have the president's former lawyer sitting down with somebody who potentially could hurt the president.

[Al Franken]

And Comey, of course, prosecutor, so she knew all the testimony. So by all rights, if Congress was going to have somebody testify about it should be her.

[Daniel Richmond]

Well, Congress isn't really interested in the truth, either. Yes.

[Al Franken]

So we're seeing them go through the motions.

[Daniel Richmond]

Yes.

[Barbara McQuaid]

And one thing I would add about the Maxwell case, you know, it makes me very angry to see victims and survivors of sexual assault being treated like pawns in all of this. There's no legitimate law enforcement reason for Todd Blanche to be meeting with Ghislaine Maxwell at this stage. She's been convicted, she's been sentenced, her case is on appeal. And suddenly, solely, it appears to address a political scandal. He's down there meeting with her in prison, seeing if she can say anything that might help the Trump, the president, and for what? Is she going to get some deals? She already got moved to a prison camp, which really feels like a reward, I guess. I don't know all the reasons for her movement, but it is not the kind of place that convicted sex offender ordinarily goes to. A very security prison camp. So that's already a benefit. But, you know, Donald Trump will not rule out the ability of a pardon for her. My gosh, politically, can you imagine? And how easy it would just be to say she's been convicted of heinous crimes. There are some real victims here. Absolutely not. I will never grant her a pardon and stasis. Well, I have the power to do it. Why is he dangling that over her head? She knows what he wants her to say, right? Say Trump was never involved. I exonerate Trump, whatever it is, and there is some carrot dangling out there for her. The fact that it was Todd Blanche who conducted that interview is so irregular as to raise a red flag for me. If you really wanted to question her, you would send in someone who is deeply involved in the case. An investigator or a prosecutor.

[Al Franken]

Again, call me. Call me.

[Barbara McQuaid]

Right. Somebody who knows that file. Instead, you send in Todd Blanche, who's new to the Justice Department and is the, you know, that one of the top executives. It's like, you know, I come from auto country. It's like taking the COO of General Motors and telling them to go down and change a carburetor. Like, we have people who do that. We don't need the boss to come do that. Why the boss? Well, perhaps because he is Donald Trump's former lawyer and is looking out for his interests.

[Al Franken]

Well, Daniel, let me ask you this. To get somebody who really understands the case and to really question her, you don't. Somebody who sits there for nine hours over two days doesn't do the job right?

[Daniel Richmond]

No. First of all, there's only one person left in the office who is the junior person on the Maxwell case who really knows it. But most importantly, when you have this pattern of firing assistants who don't execute on the preferences of the administration, no one could be sure that even an untainted line prosecutor sent in will be doing what we expect her to do. I'd like to think she would. But they have so muddied the waters with their essentially rule of terror to fire people who they disagree with or who aren't sufficiently loyal. They have a problem in really finding somebody who's capable of looking for the truth, who will report the truth and will be perceived as saying the truth.

[Al Franken]

Let's go back to the. Did the Russians favor Trump? Because that is a case. Are they actually going forward with that? Do you think that Obama falsified that?

[Daniel Richmond]

I think that here, as in so many things the Trump administration does, the deliverable is the announcement of the investigation. That's what they're going for. They're not going to find anything. I'm not even sure they're really looking. It's to be able to say, you know, we're marshaling our resources to pursue this weaponization, details to follow. And of course, the details won't follow. They're not intended to follow.

[Al Franken]

And this is something that Marco Rubio, who was chairman of the Intelligence Committee in the Senate, had confirmed that, yes, the Russians did favor Trump. And there are a number of things that they did to do that they didn't. They hack, you know, emails of, you know, Podesta and other people and release them to WikiLeaks, who put them out at the time to go with the Democratic Convention, all that kind of stuff.

[Daniel Richmond]

But in his defense, I'd like to say Rubio will sign anything you give him. So who knows?

[Barbara McQuaid]

Well, let me say a word about that, Al, because you're absolutely right. So Robert Mueller conducted his investigation, of course, concluded there was insufficient evidence to charge conspiracy. But he did find that Russia sought to advance the campaign of Donald Trump at the expense of Hillary Clinton. And they cited a number of factors in that. One that you just mentioned was hacking into the DNC computers to steal emails and then releasing them through WikiLeaks on the very same day that the Access Hollywood tape comes out about Donald Trump in an effort to push that story out of the headlines. There was also the meeting at Trump Tower with Russians for the purpose of obtaining dirt on Hillary Clinton. There was the exchange of polling information about Midwestern states from Paul Manafort to Constantine Kilimnik, who was a Russian intelligence officer. And then there was a coordination of messaging to coincide with the release of emails about Hillary Clinton's health, that she was in poor health, that she was low on energy, and other things. Now, what he found was there wasn't a sufficient actual coordination of those things, but that Russia offered those things and the Trump campaign welcomed them. And it isn't just Robert Mueller who said so. The U.S. senate reached a similar conclusion. The Inspector General of the Department of Justice conducted an investigation into the origins of of the Russia investigation and found that it was properly predicated. That same term we used earlier, when an Australian diplomat shared information about a conversation he had with George Papadopoulos, a member of the Trump campaign, who said, we've got this dirt on Hillary Clinton. We're going to use it at the right time. In addition, there was John Durham, the special counsel appointed by William Barr. Yes. And he found nothing. The most he found was an FBI agent who made a false statement, who was brought to justice for that, and he charged a lawyer who came forward to the FBI with information, who was acquitted at trial. That's it. So, my gosh, this has been the most investigated issue in the face of the earth. I think it has been conclusively determined that Russia did try to help Donald Trump. You know, there's this conclusion that there wasn't any proven change in the electoral count. That's true, but that doesn't mean there wasn't an effort there and that it wasn't a laudable investigation.

[Al Franken]

And not only that, but it doesn't prove that it didn't change.

[Barbara McQuaid]

Exactly. That's true. And the last point I'll make is the idea that they would charge Barack Obama with treason over this is also, I think, supportive of Daniel's statement that this is really all about the announcement and not about any real investigation. Because treason requires that we be at war with another nation and that the defendant provide aid and comfort to the enemy. That just can't possibly happen because we were not at war with any country at the time of these alleged incidents. So all of it is a smokescreen. And I agree with Daniel that the announcement was probably the whole thing.

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[Al Franken]

Audio Daniel what cases haven't been taken up that historically would have been taken up?

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[Daniel Richmond]

I mean, one of the there are two parts of this. One is cases against friends of Trump. This pattern of dismissing cases, whether in California or elsewhere, of his allies suggest possibly, although we can't know, that there are investigations that might have been pursued against specific individuals that weren't because they have some sort of protection from the top. But I think more generally what what I find really troubling is federal criminal enforcement is not supposed to replace what states do. It's supposed to really contribute something special and I hope very useful to the country. And the thing they really can contribute is going after people who would otherwise have impunity, those who can't be picked up on the center. We're talking about organized crime, white collar crime, all these things that take real work. And the feds have the strategic and other resources to go after them. And what we're seeing now is an administration that doesn't care in the slightest about those cases. We see them pulling agents off white collar cases, corruption cases and the like to do immigration, to do maybe some violent crime, anything but what really we expect the feds to do and no one else would do if the feds don't do them.

[Al Franken]

So you're saying instead of what should be taken up, they're taking up stuff that shouldn't be taken up?

[Daniel Richmond]

Yes. I mean, let's just take Department of Homeland Security. They had within them a unit called Homeland Security Investigations that did fantastic work, whether going after child sex abuse, material people, child abusers, or various interesting kinds of organized criminal activity. So many of them have been pulled off just to round up people off the streets. FBI squads have been decimated to support immigration investigations. And when I say investigations, I just mean roundups because they're not even complex. This can change down the road. But you're taking agencies that really had missions that have really important aspects of those missions crumbled before their eyes.

[Barbara McQuaid]

And I'll add that prosecutors are similarly being directed in other directions. Far more immigration cases than ever before because resources are finite. So I know in my former office, for example, we had the capacity to do about 1,000 cases a year. And many of those cases were public corruption cases or corporate fraud cases. And those can take many months to put together an investigation using the grand jury process and subpoenaing documents and like instead they're going after low hanging fruit, people who are here on a visa overstay. It used to be that Immigration and Customs Enforcement, when they went after in their Office of Removal Operations, they prioritized targets based on danger to the community.

[Al Franken]

Right.

[Barbara McQuaid]

So we didn't prosecute criminally. Everybody who was visa over stay. Many of those people were dealt with.

[Al Franken]

I think that's what most Americans want, is that you go after the immigrants who've committed crimes.

[Barbara McQuaid]

I think that's right. But that's not what's happening now because, you know, we know that early on when the numbers weren't what Stephen Miller, Trump's advisor, wanted them to be, he got on the phone with the heads of all of the ICE offices and said, I want 3,000 arrests a day. You need to start going to Home Depot parking lots and 711 parking lots and rounding people up. And so instead of going after somebody who's got a criminal offense or is a threat to national security, which may take some days to find and locate an arrest, now it's let's go park in front of the school as kids get dropped off or go to the.

[Al Franken]

Courtroom where someone is checking in on what they're supposed to be doing and then arresting them.

[Barbara McQuaid]

And even churches where in the past there had been policies against arresting people at places of worship. So finding people and you know, now it's grandmas and moms and dads and.

[Al Franken]

Day laborers, this is Mr. Cruelty is.

[Barbara McQuaid]

The point, I suppose. So you know, the numbers will be there. But I think those numbers are a little bit stacked because they aren't the people who are posing a risk to public safety.

[Al Franken]

And Americans don't want this. That polling has been pretty clear.

[Daniel Richmond]

Let's be, I want to see what Americans want. I'll wait until, wait until the midterms. It's scary to think that we really know what Americans want. When Americans gave us this.

[Al Franken]

Well, they gave us this for a number of reasons and won't go into necessarily all of them. But I think that Biden's debate performance and waiting until then to bow out, he didn't even bow out after that.

[Daniel Richmond]

For.

[Al Franken]

For a while. So, you know, this was a close election, and we could have won this one.

[Barbara McQuaid]

Elections, as they say, have consequences, Alan. We're living them.

[Daniel Richmond]

Yeah.

[Al Franken]

Okay, so what percentage of cases have a partisan element to them in the Justice Department? How many don't? And has that changed during the Trump regime?

[Daniel Richmond]

Well, I don't even know what you mean by partisan. I think cases against executives who I would never have thought of as partisan cases before. But to the extent they know the president or somebody they know has reached out to the president, they've become, if not partisan, at least politicized. You know, so much of federal criminal enforcement.

[Al Franken]

So someone will not be prosecuted because they have a affinity for the.

[Barbara McQuaid]

Or pardons. I mean, we've seen pardons, and some.

[Daniel Richmond]

People, I assume, will be prosecuted. I mean, one of the good things, I guess, is it requires a lot of institutions to go through. Before you could prosecute somebody successfully for a crime, you need to go through grand juries and juries and judges. So there's less of a risk that somebody will be prosecuted improperly than that a case will be killed improperly. But both are very real possibilities.

[Al Franken]

Do you know about the Breonna Taylor sentencing?

[Daniel Richmond]

Yep.

[Al Franken]

So the. The officer, Brett Hankinson, who fired 10 bullets into her apartment, they only wanted to censor to one day, him to one day. Now the judge gave him, I guess, 33 months or something like that. But was that something that came down, you think, from Trump?

[Barbara McQuaid]

I don't know. You know, it's difficult to say. There are things that are reflective of a political worldview that, in my view, are appropriate changes from administration to administration, as opposed to naked partisan politics. For example, it is not unusual to see priorities shift from one administration to another. In the Biden administration and in the Obama administration, one of the priorities was prosecuting police officers who use excessive force, using pattern and practice cases against police departments who had unconstitutional policing procedures. But as we saw in the Bush administration, now we're seeing in the Trump administration a very sort of pro law enforcement worldview that is going easy. In fact, they have pulled back on all of the consent judgments they had with police departments around the country to institute reforms there. I think that's more of a political philosophy. It's not one I agree with, but I think that is within the bounds of ordinary executive control from one party to the other. The part where I get worried is when it is naked politics to earn cheap votes. Now, maybe this is. Maybe this is an effort to say, look at me. I support our Law enforcement officers even failing to hold accountable someone who did something as egregious as, in my view, Officer Hankinson did.

[Al Franken]

Okay, well, let's talk about Epstein for a little while. We were talking a little bit about Todd Blanche visited her, Ghislaine Maxwell, in prison and spent, what, nine hours with her. Then she was transferred to this Club Fed. Is that suspicious?

[Barbara McQuaid]

Very much so, in my view, partly just because the nature of her offense would make her ineligible for that kind of institution. It's a low security facility. It is the kind of place where white collar criminals go.

[Al Franken]

They said this has never happened before.

[Barbara McQuaid]

Yeah, this is the kind of place where Elizabeth Holmes is staying, you know, and as a result, they've had to beef up their security there. It's the kind of place sometimes people walk away from. So there's an escape issue. I think a bigger issue is harm to Maxwell herself. And so I think that that is why they've had to increase security at that facility. I'm sure the. The people who are the guards there are not very happy about having someone they're not equipped to handle there. And so why would she be sent there? Well, perhaps this is just a benefit in exchange for having a talk with Todd Blanche. But why would she get a benefit in exchange for a talk with Todd Blanche? Part of it seems to me a red flag that they are offering her something in exchange for something she can provide. And what is it she can provide to this administration? You know, they would have pursued any other pro prosecution agreement before she was convicted or sentenced if she could, you know, deliver the names of, you know, some sex offender. Instead, what it seems to me they're looking for is some sort of exoneration of Donald Trump. And, you know, she knows what they want. And so it's hard for me to believe that anything she would say would have any credibility. But I suppose, once again, it's just the announcement that Trump's been cleared that he's looking for.

[Al Franken]

Okay, well, any. Anything else you'd like to add?

[Barbara McQuaid]

I guess I would add this. You know, in an agency like the Department of Justice, personnel is such a part of policy. We used to joke that if you want to be a good manager, hire good people because they make it easy. And I will tell you, the people I worked with at the Justice Department were just the best. Great integrity, nonpartisan, hard working, diligent. And I worry that those are the people who've been fired, right? The people who worked on the top cases, the January 6 cases, the Russia investigation, the Jack Smith's team, they're all gone. And the new hiring policy requires new employees to do these fawning essays about Donald Trump. They're asked to describe their favorite executive order that he's written and how you will help implement Donald Trump's agenda if you come into the federal government. What I worry is they're replacing all the good people with Trump loyalists. And then what do you do next time? If you come in and you are a president of either party of good faith, do you fire all these people who came in as Trump loyalists and try to replace them with people who are neutral and of integrity? Or does that further corrupt the Justice Department, which is supposed to hire people based on merit and not partisan politics? And if you do preserve that, which I guess I would tend to favor, these Trumpies are going to be embedded in government. They use the term burrowed. Burrowed in for decades to come.

[Al Franken]

I hope that doesn't happen. And I think that there would be cause to replace people who are overly partisan. And I think that that's exactly who Bondi and Trump are choosing as the test that people had to fill out to get hired. Tests. Well, thank you both.

[Barbara McQuaid]

Yeah, thank you. Great to be with you, Al.

[Daniel Richmond]

Thank you for having us.

[Al Franken]

Well, I hope you enjoyed listening. That beautiful music is by Leo Kottke, the great Leo Kottke. I want to thank Peter Ogburn for producing this podcast. We'll talk again next week.

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