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.
