Defund the DOJ as Courts Fail to Rein It In

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

President Biden and his Leftist administration have weaponized the Department of Justice (DOJ) for their political purposes to an intolerable extreme. The incoming Republican-controlled House of Representatives should end this abuse, by defunding the DOJ.

The latest of many political atrocities by the DOJ was the rushed announcement last Friday of the appointment of a special prosecutor, with unlimited funding, to harass Donald Trump and his supporters. Defunding the agency is the only effective way to stop its insatiable political desire to remove Trump from the 2024 campaign.

The naming of this special prosecutor, who was not even made available for the public announcement, was obviously rushed for political gain. Trump had declared his candidacy for president merely 3 days earlier, as late returns from the midterm elections assured the GOP of a majority in the House of Representatives.

Already there is Republican talk of defunding the special prosecutor himself, but that is not enough. DOJ would simply continue to bring abusive prosecutions through its regular staff of highly partisan attorneys, as the DOJ had already done in raiding Trump’s residence in Mar-a-Lago.

Even Republican appointees to the appellate courts, some of whom previously served as federal prosecutors, are unwilling to rein in the DOJ’s abuse of power. During the oral argument Tuesday before the Eleventh Circuit in Atlanta, a hostile panel of appellate judges seemed indifferent to the misuse of the DOJ by Biden against his own political rival, Donald Trump.

“Do you think it is rare for a target of a warrant to think it is overreaching?” was one of many naive questions by the Eleventh Circuit panel that implied it will let the DOJ do whatever it wants to Biden’s political rival. One panelist demanded that Trump prove the seizure of 2,900 mostly personal items from his home exhibited a “callous disregard” for his rights, using an undefined and thus inapplicable phrase.

The political wrongdoing by the DOJ has reached a crescendo and cannot be cured by the committee hearings that House Republicans are planning after the new year. The DOJ is so heavily populated now with liberal hacks that it is necessary to take away the meat on which it feeds.

DOJ does not police our streets, protect our homes, respond to 911 calls, or safeguard against the daily crime that has risen to a pandemic level. If the whopping budget that the House provides to the DOJ were redistributed to local police departments, it would help compensate for their dramatic loss of officers under the Defund the Police movement.

The House controls the purse strings as the Founders wanted, because only the House is elected every two years by the people. By electing a Republican House, the people voted against the rogue DOJ.

Every Republican prosecuted before a jury trial in Democrat-dominated Washington, D.C., and northern Virginia has been convicted, while every one of the few Democrat lobbyists prosecuted has been acquitted. There is nothing fair about this process and it needs to be defunded.

Heinous crimes of street violence unrelated to politics are occurring nearly everywhere as local law enforcement is understaffed to prevent or solve them. The suspect in the recent killing at a Colorado Springs nightclub had been previously arrested for menacing with extreme violence, but was released without punishment.

The DOJ looks for ways to charge criminals with “hate” or some other political spin. The DOJ lied in its rushed indictment of the intruder into Paul Pelosi’s home, making the crime seem politically motivated on the eve of the midterm election, as the bodycam video contradicted DOJ’s court filing about the crucial detail of who opened the door.

In announcing his candidacy for president on Tuesday, Trump pledged that “we will dismantle the Deep State and restore government by the people.” The timing of the Deep State striking back on Friday with the appointment of a special prosecutor is too close to deny the cause-and-effect.

DOJ has already had two years to investigate the First Amendment activities of Trump supporters following the 2020 election, and if the attorney general had anything legitimate to say about it he should have said so long ago. Instead, Garland apparently reacts to political pressure by those who want to stop Trump from winning reelection in 2024.

Billions of the DOJ’s budget is spent against conduct that most Americans do not consider criminal, such as fake environmental crimes like draining water on someone’s own property. The DOJ has spent millions on prosecuting our own Border Patrol agents who try to apprehend illegal aliens.

Trump rightly brags about how he cut off funding of Central American countries until they agreed to take back their own gang members. The new Republican House should likewise stop funding the DOJ.

John and Andy Schlafly are sons of Phyllis Schlafly (1924-2016) and lead the continuing Phyllis Schlafly Eagles organizations with writing and policy work.

These columns are also posted on PhyllisSchlafly.com, pseagles.com, and Townhall.com.