After the liberal media spent years accusing the Department of Justice under President Trump of just being a tool for a corrupt president to investigate and prosecute political enemies (which it never was), ABC chief anchor George Stephanopoulos was demanding such of the incoming Biden administration. During a Sunday interview with Biden Chief of Staff Ron Klain on This Week, the former Clinton lackey pressed his guess on having the Biden DOJ subject Trump and administration officials to investigations.
Stephanopoulos broached the subject by suggesting there was “tension between getting unity, getting things done, working with the Republicans” and rabid Democratic desirers for “investigating any wrongdoing that occurred during the Trump administration.”
After noting that President-elect Biden had “expressed a preference that he doesn't want his presidency consumed by Trump investigations,” Stephanopoulos pushed for Klain to acknowledge the demands of those Democrats:
That has raised some concerns among some Democrats, including Congressman Bill Pascrell (D-NJ), who had this to say this week: “Failure to hold financial and political wrongdoing accountable in the past has invited greater malfeasance by bad actors. A repeat of those failures in 2021 further emboldens criminality by our national leaders and continues America down the path of lawlessness and authoritarianism. There must be accountability”
“How do you balance moving forward with getting accountability,” the ABC anchor wondered.
Klain tried to defuse the question by saying Biden had made it clear he “is not going to tell the Justice Department who to investigate or who not to investigate.” Adding:
That's who we saw the past four years. The President tampering with the Justice Department, egging on investigations, so on and so forth. He's going to pick an excellent attorney general, an independent Justice Department. And that department will make decisions independently free of politics, free of political favor in either direction as to how to enforce the laws.
That's the way it should be. That's the way it's always been. That's the way it needs to be if we're going to have the kind of rule of law that's so important in our country.
Unsatisfied with the answer, Stephanopoulos asked Klain to divulge who Biden was thinking about naming as attorney general. Perhaps that would have given him a clue as to how fervently they would try to pursue Trump and administration officials for prosecution.
Klain wouldn’t give up that information and told his host to watch their Tuesday cabinet appointment announcement if he wanted information. “I knew you weren't going to tell me who it was. I was hoping you might me which ones it was,” Stephanopoulos concluded.
George Stephanopoulos’s badgering for politically motivated investigations was made possible because of lucrative sponsorships from WeatherTech and Fidelity. Their contact information is linked so you can tell them about the biased news they fund.
The transcript is below, click "expand" to read:
ABC’s This Week
November 22, 2020
9:16:17 a.m. Eastern(…)
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: There's going to be tension between getting unity, getting things done, working with the Republicans and investigating any wrongdoing that occurred during the Trump administration. Now, the Vice President, it has been reported, has expressed a preference that he doesn't want his presidency consumed by Trump investigations.
That has raised some concerns among some Democrats, including Congressman Bill Pascrell (D-NJ), who had this to say this week: “Failure to hold financial and political wrongdoing accountable in the past has invited greater malfeasance by bad actors. A repeat of those failures in 2021 further emboldens criminality by our national leaders and continues America down the path of lawlessness and authoritarianism. There must be accountability”
How do you balance moving forward with getting accountability?
RON KLAIN: Well, let's be clear, George. The President-elect spoke about this many times during the campaign. And what he made clear that Joe Biden is not going to tell the Justice Department who to investigate or who not to investigate.
That's who we saw the past four years. The President tampering with the Justice Department, egging on investigations, so on and so forth. He's going to pick an excellent attorney general, an independent Justice Department. And that department will make decisions independently free of politics, free of political favor in either direction as to how to enforce the laws.
That's the way it should be. That's the way it's always been. That's the way it needs to be if we're going to have the kind of rule of law that's so important in our country.
STEPHANOPOULOS: We going to see an attorney general or State Department or Treasury pick this week?
KLAIN: Well, what I can confirm, George, is that you are going to see the first of the President-elect's cabinet appointments on Tuesday of this week. Meeting the pace -- Beating, in fact, the pace that was set by the Obama/Biden transition, beating the pace set by the Trump transition.
So, you're going to see the first cabinet picks this Tuesday. But if you want to know what cabinet agencies they are, who's going to be in those cabinet agencies, you'll have to wait for the President-Elect to say that himself on Tuesday.
STEPHANOPOULOS: I knew you weren't going to tell me who it was. I was hoping you might me which ones it was. [Laughter] But thank you. We’ll be watching on TV. Ron Klain.
(…)
