Just one month after Attorney General Merrick Garland berated Americans for daring to question the Department of Justice and the FBI’s credibility, the Office of the Inspector General released investigative summaries detailing how at least three assistant U.S. attorneys engaged in inappropriate, illegal, and unruly behavior that went unchecked by Garland’s agency.
Despite clear evidence that these federal lawyers broke DOJ policy, and in some cases, even state and federal laws, the DOJ deliberately refused to prosecute at least two of them.
The first OIG report confirms that an assistant U.S. attorney maintained “Inappropriate Physical Contact with a Foreign Service National” by “forcibly” grabbing the FSN, who was employed by the U.S. State Department, by the chin “in an aggressive gesture.”
The OIG also found that this specific attorney engaged in “Other Unprofessional Conduct while on a Department of Justice Detail Assignment in a Foreign Country” including “becoming inebriated in the presence of foreign government officials and making offensive and demeaning remarks to foreign government officials.” That didn’t matter to the DOJ, however, which declined to prosecute the AUSA for offending behavior
In another report, the DOJ oversight office found that an AUSA exposed “genitals while in a public place,” “sexually assaulted a civilian while on a date,” and then “lacked candor” in interviews about the incident when asked by the OIG. Despite these facts, the DOJ also rejected prosecuting this unnamed individual.
A third investigative summary documented how an AUSA who was stopped in a traffic stop, misused the AUSA title in an attempt to get away despite driving “a personal vehicle while under the influence of alcohol.” That included engaging “in conduct that was prejudicial to the government, including ignoring instructions, cursing at officers, and kicking the
door of the patrol vehicle, in violation of federal ethics regulations and 5 C.F.R. § 735.203.”
The summary did not state whether the DOJ chose to prosecute but noted that its findings were passed along to the Executive Office for United States Attorneys and the DOJ’s Office of Professional Responsibility “for appropriate action.”
Shortly after Garland personally greenlit the FBI’s raid on former President Donald Trump’s home last month, he gave a speech affirming his department’s commitment to “applying the law evenly without fear or favor.”
“Faithful adherence to the rule of law is the bedrock principle of the Justice Department and of our democracy…Under my watch, that is precisely what the Justice Department is doing,” Garland claimed.
The Biden administration’s DOJ, under the watchful eye of Garland, however, is better known by 4 in 5 voters for upholding a two-tiered justice system that lets allies of the regime off the hook. That’s likely why more than half of U.S. voters think bureaucratic agencies such as the DOJ and FBI are too big and too focused on advancing a political agenda.
