Monday on CNN’s “NewsNight,” CNN contributor Scott Jennings took on former Department of Justice prosecutor Ashley Akers and Democrat strategist Maria Cardona, who promoted the notion the Department of Justice was independent of the executive branch and the President of the United States.
JENNINGS: Yes. I think the IG thing is separate from the — in my mind, it’s two separate issues, specifically on the prosecutors. I actually think it’s pretty reasonable for the president who was just elected to not want people in his government that he runs who were just most recently trying to put him in jail. I mean, it seems like common sense to me that it wouldn’t be right to force the president to run a government, at least which in part has been recently trying to jail him.
You know, I’m not — I grant you that nothing wrong may have happened that they may have done everything correctly, but still he got elected. This is a government of the people that elects the president. It’s not a government of the career prosecutors. And so I think for now it’s fine that they’re not in the government when he’s not the president. And if they want to come back, I’m not sure I would have a problem with that. But I do think it’s reasonable for the president to believe that the entire executive branch is, you know, rowing in the direction that he sets as the duly elected president.
AKERS: I just think that forgets the point that the Department of Justice and the attorneys in the department should act free from any political influence or will.
JENNINGS: But it’s a department of the executive branch. The president appoints the attorney general. It works for the president.
CARDONA: But the Department of Justice does not work for the president. The Department of Justice works for the American people.
JENNINGS: No, it works for the executive branch. It’s in the Constitution. It exists in the executive branch.
CARDONA: The lawyers of the Justice Department work for the American people.
JENNINGS: You’re acting like it’s an independent branch of government. It’s in the executive branch, run by the president.
CARDONA: Yes, Scott. But the lawyers of the Justice Department work for the American people, not for the president of the United States, not the person in the office.
JENNINGS: So, you don’t think anyone in the executive branch is bound to the head of the executive branch?
CARDONA: No. Here’s the difference though. I think this is very critical. You have political appointees who serve at the pleasure of the president. They can be fired whenever, for whatever reason. The president doesn’t even need to say why. These are career prosecutors. These are career inspectors general. There’s actually a law that says that you cannot fire them without cause.
ALLISON: I guess, by that, by what you’re saying then, if the former Department of Justice under Joe Biden actually acted under his, then there was nothing wrong with it. If everything — by your logic, if you apply it to the last administration, which I don’t think is the case, then if Joe Biden wanted to go after Donald Trump because he wanted to go after — the attorney general, he should be able to do it, and there was no —
JENNINGS: They did go after Donald Trump because Joe Biden didn’t want to do it.
ALLISON: He had a special prosecutor. No, I mean —
JENNINGS: But at the order of the president.
ALLISON: But then why is it wrong?
(CROSSTALKS)
PHILLIP: Hold on, Scott. Hold on, Scott. You just said something that’s not correct.
JENNINGS: What?
PHILLIP: You try to slip it in there. You said, at the order of the president. That is completely false.
JENNINGS: He did not appoint the prosecutor?
PHILLIP: That it is completely false that Joe Biden ordered the creation of someone to investigate Donald Trump. That did not happen now.
JENNINGS: What do you — I mean —
PHILLIP: You just said that, and that didn’t happen.
JENNINGS: They had a special prosecutor under the Biden administration that went after Donald Trump, did it not?
PHILLIP: You just said, under the order of the president. Did Joe Biden —
JENNINGS: All these things are in the executive branch.
PHILLIP: Hey, I get that.
JENNINGS: And this is my argument. It is an executive branch, and the president’s at the top of it.
PHILLIP: But you have no evidence that Joe Biden ordered the investigation of —
JENNINGS: He said on the record multiple times that Donald Trump should have been thrown in jail, and instead that Merrick Garland failed by not doing.
PHILLIP: If Ashley’s point is correct, that you think that it’s just fine for the President of the United States to order whatever investigation he wants, what’s wrong with that?
JENNINGS: I think I am making a simple personnel argument.
PHILLIP: No, what’s wrong with it?
JENNINGS: The Justice Department exists in the executive branch and it exists under the president. It is not an independent agency.
PHILLIP: If that is the case, then what would be wrong with Joe Biden — if that’s the case, what would be wrong with Joe Biden saying, I’m going to order the Justice Department to go after my political enemies? Wouldn’t there be nothing wrong with that by your logic?
JENNINGS: Well, I don’t think that there’s any problem with the president as the head of the executive branch telling the Justice Department. I think things need to be investigated here, but it’s up to them. It’s up to them to decide whether laws were broken.
PHILLIP: I think that is quite an extraordinary acknowledgement after four years of saying the Justice Department has been wrongly weaponized against Republicans. You are now saying, it’s okay —
JENNINGS: I’m not saying it should be weaponized, but it doesn’t exist separate from the president. It does not.