During Monday’s Congressional Democrats’ briefing, Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-HI) discussed President Trump's record in during his second administration and his pushback on the judicial branch.
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NewsTranscript
00:00Senator Hirono from the great state of Hawaii.
00:03Thank you very much, and I thank all of you for being here.
00:07And obviously there were a lot of people here who really care about adherence to the rule of law,
00:12and I'm glad that I was able to make it for this portion.
00:15So I thank Congressman Raskin and Senator Schiff.
00:21So these are not normal times.
00:25We have a president who doesn't think that the rule of law applies to him.
00:28Aided and embedded by a Supreme Court in their immunity decision.
00:33So what we have is a president who will go after anybody, including countries, corporations, law firms,
00:40anybody who he thinks can stand up to him.
00:44Basically, he is setting things up so that he can extort from them what he wants.
00:50And it is more than sickening to know that the people who are supposed to be standing up for the rule of law,
01:00I would say the lawyers, judges in our country, and we see many of them just, I would use the word caving,
01:08and that is why, caving to the demands of this very corrupt president.
01:15So, Rachel, Ms. Cohen, thank you very much for having the courage,
01:20and for you to note that, you know, it's too bad that none of the partners are making millions of dollars
01:26at your firm would stand up to do the right thing.
01:30It's pretty pathetic.
01:30And for the 500 or so law firms that filed an amicus brief on behalf of Perkins Coie,
01:37I say aloha to them, because if we don't all stick together, we're all going to be divided and conquered.
01:44So thank you very much.
01:45And for each of you, some of you who I know worked for the DOJ,
01:49in fact, I think it's Ms. Young, you worked for the U.S. Attorney's Office, you worked for the DOJ,
01:59you have a wonderful background.
02:01I remember when we had the hearing on Pam Bondi,
02:06because she had said at some point that we should go after the prosecutors,
02:12prosecute the prosecutors, and investigate the investigators.
02:15During her confirmation hearing in the Senate, I asked one of the witnesses
02:21who came on the second day of her hearings, you know,
02:25what would be an indication that she is, in fact, weaponizing the DOJ
02:33to exact retribution, et cetera.
02:37And this witness, who happened to be a law professor at Georgetown, my alma mater,
02:42and she said, you're going to see people resigning, and that's what's happening,
02:47or you're going to see people being fired, and that's what's happening.
02:50All is not well in the DOJ.
02:54I did want to ask a specific question of Ryan Croswell.
02:59When Deputy Attorney General Tom Blanchard came before the Judiciary Committee,
03:07I asked him about why he was allowing attrition at a different part of the criminal division,
03:15the Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, which fights child sexual exploitation.
03:21And he responded by suggesting that only U.S. attorney's offices really prosecute crime
03:27and downplaying the role of criminal division trial attorneys in the DOJ.
03:34As someone who worked in both the U.S. attorney's office and criminal division,
03:38can you explain why having criminal division attorneys in D.C. is important
03:43and what we will lose if we gut the criminal division?
03:47Thank you, Senator.
03:51What the criminal division litigating sections like public integrity bring is a degree of expertise.
03:57So certainly there are assistant U.S. attorneys around the country
04:01that can handle prosecutions of public corruption.
04:06We have a deep bench of very talented lawyers that are experts in this.
04:11They can go all over the nation.
04:12And you mentioned that I have been in the USA and other districts.
04:15When I was a prosecutor in San Diego from 2017 to 2020, I was prosecuting many immigration cases.
04:24And the entire time you had a public integrity section back in Washington,
04:28hypothetically, if I had a situation where potentially a federal agent was allowing smuggling to happen
04:36because that agent was corrupt, I could call that public integrity section
04:40and get their help in prosecuting that case.
04:43And so if you worry about corruption, if you worry about use of power,
04:49it's good to have 30 or so attorneys who are able to take those cases on,
04:55which also allows the U.S. attorney's offices to focus on violent crime, immigration crimes, fraud,
05:04predation on children.
05:06And that's the value of it.
05:09So obviously the Justice Department is not particularly interested in preserving the expertise
05:18or keeping the expertise in all these areas within the DOJ,
05:23and they have their own agenda, which is what I would not call it the people's agenda.
05:29So again, for Ms. Young, thank you for what you are doing.
05:38And in fact, when the AG Bondi and interim D.C. U.S. attorney Ed Martin referred to DOJ attorneys
05:51as the president's lawyers, I think you were asked this question before,
05:55but do any of you, but especially for you, Ms. Young, do you consider the attorneys at the DOJ
06:01or U.S. attorney's office the president's attorneys, and if not, who are they attorneys for?
06:07Sure. DOJ attorneys are absolutely not the president's attorneys.
06:11The president is free to hire as many attorneys as he wants.
06:16Attorneys at DOJ represent the United States and the American people, and that's it.
06:21To think that we now have an attorney general who says she is the president's attorney,
06:30and she's certainly acting in that way, so there you go.
06:34It's just an entire takeover of, I would say, an institution, the Justice Department,
06:42that is supposed to be prosecuting criminals and doing the things that I know that all of you have been asked.
06:48I can't tell what the time is there.
06:51What is that?
06:52The time is up.
06:54Okay.
06:55Well, that explains it.
06:56But we have so many concerns, and again, I thank each of you for resigning, being fired,
07:01doing all the things that requires a lot of courage to do,
07:04but we just need to continue to fight back.
07:09Thank you, Senator.
07:09Thank you, Senator.