President Donald Trump’s chaotic administration is continuing to have its corruption revealed to the world. On Tuesday, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) revealed that his panel would be hosting a hearing on June 24 with witnesses including Aaron Zelinsky, a federal prosecutor who participated in Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation and who, after that concluded, served on the federal prosecution team handling the case of Trump’s ally Roger Stone. Zelinsky, along with every other then-prosecutor on the case, stepped away from Stone’s case after Attorney General Bill Barr’s team intervened to lower the federal sentencing recommendation for Stone.
Two Justice Department officials have agreed to testify under subpoena before the House Judiciary Committee next week about politicization under Attorney General Barr.
One of the officials is Aaron Zelinsky, who quit a case against Roger Stone.https://t.co/vVa4d70nB8
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) June 16, 2020
This week, Nadler commented:
‘Again and again, Attorney General Barr has demonstrated that he will cater to President Trump’s private political interests, at the expense of the American people and the rule of law… The Attorney General—who cites his busy schedule as a basis for refusing to appear before the House Judiciary Committee but has made time for multiple television interviews—may have abdicated his responsibility to Congress, but the brave men and women of our civil service have not.’
Nadler indicated that the witnesses at the upcoming hearing “will speak to the lasting damage the President and the Attorney General have inflicted on the Department of Justice.”
As MSNBC contributor Joyce Alene put it:
‘DOJ prosecutor witnesses will describe the unprecedented politicization of the Dept under Trump & AG Barr. One of them, Zelinsky, withdrew from the Roger Stone case under protest. Once the floodgates open, expect others to come forward & expose what’s been happening at DOJ.’
DOJ prosecutor witnesses will describe the unprecedented politicization of the Dept under Trump & AG Barr. One of them, Zelinsky, withdrew from the Roger Stone case under protest. Once the floodgates open, expect others to come forward & expose what’s been happening at DOJ. https://t.co/efOZdBvXo0
— Joyce Alene (@JoyceWhiteVance) June 16, 2020
Besides Zelinsky, witnesses who are scheduled to appear at the Judiciary Committee’s planned June 24 hearing also include John Elias, who currently serves as the acting chief of staff for the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division, which has faced allegations of conducting investigations that cater to the president’s political interests. These politics-tainted investigations have included a case targeting a planned merger between Time Warner — which owned CNN — and AT&T and an investigation into a deal that the state of California struck with car manufacturers to secure strong fuel emissions standards in the state. The president has long established his own opposition to those standards.
The Judiciary Committee has issued subpoenas for Zelinsky and Elias, presumably to help give them cover to testify against potential political interference from other officials at the Justice Department. The Trump administration has long sought to block potentially damaging information from getting out to investigators, no matter the precedents of basic cooperation with something like a subpoena from Congress.
Recently, the Trump administration has also turned towards trying to block information from people who are not even in the administration anymore. This week, ABC News reported that the Trump administration was preparing to file a lawsuit to try and stop the publication of a memoir from former Trump national security adviser John Bolton. The former Trump official apparently reveals a slew of evidence of presidential misconduct across his book, and Bolton’s lawyer, Chuck Cooper, has alleged that the Trump administration is trying to censor his client.
