CNN legal analyst on multiple resignations at the DOJ: “Is Fox News calling the shots?”
Published
Citation From the February 12, 2020, edition of CNN's At This Hour
ELIE HONIG (CNN LEGAL ANALYST, FORMER FEDERAL AND STATE PROSECUTOR): There is no law saying the president shall not interfere with the Justice Department, but that is, as Anne [Milgram] said, that is a long-standing crucial norm that has been observed and respected by presidents certainly throughout my lifetime of both parties. And now we are seeing that norm -- of all the norms this president has shattered, this is the most damaging one.
KATE BOLDUAN (ANCHOR): There's also one more thing that struck me in kind of how this went down. The New York Times is reporting, and I'll read it how they reported it, “The line prosecutors were even more upset because they were told that they would be reversed only after Fox News had reported it late Tuesday morning, according to people familiar with the situation."
What does that tell you guys?
LAURA JARRETT (CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT): It's a morale issue. I mean, how do you -- how do you do your job when that's how you have to find out about this? When you're finding out that you get a call that we're going to reverse this, that we're going to do a complete about-face -- why? Who knows what that conversation was.
ANNE MILGRAM (CNN LEGAL ANALYST AND FORMER FEDERAL PROSECUTOR): It's a protest.
JARRETT: It's a protest. And I think that that's what you see with the resignations.
BOLDUAN: Let's be honest. Carrie Cordero wrote this, and I thought it was fantastic: “Four federal prosecutors didn't withdraw from a case because they had a substantive disagreement with management. They withdrew because they were watching justice undone."
JARRETT: It's a noisy withdrawal.
HONIG: The question is who's calling the shots. Is Fox News calling the shots for the Justice Department? Are Trump's tweets? That's not how it should be done.