STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
More federal prosecutors are quitting or being fired in the Eastern District of Virginia. That's the U.S. attorney's office that procured an indictment of former FBI Director James Comey. President Trump's handpicked U.S. attorney found insufficient evidence to move against Comey, so Trump replaced him with another handpicked attorney who followed instructions and turned the power of the legal system against one of the president's perceived enemies. Departures have continued in the office since then, so we've called Elliot Williams, a former deputy assistant attorney general of the Justice Department during the Obama administration. Welcome.
ELLIOT WILLIAMS: Hey, Steve. How are you?
INSKEEP: OK, we should be real here. Presidents generally get the U.S. attorneys they want. So is all of this turnover normal?
WILLIAMS: It is not normal. And your point is a very important one. Presidents get the U.S. attorneys they want. And Steve, I'd be even broader. Presidents get the personnel they want. Every four or eight years, there's a shift in policy and presidential administrations, and that's OK. What you're seeing here are massive, whether it's terminations or layoffs. By way of example, the Civil Rights Division in the Justice Department has seen some 70% of its staff either fired, reassigned or leaving in the last months since the president started. It's simply not normal this level of turnover.
INSKEEP: And what do you think is happening then?
WILLIAMS: Well, you know, I think people are being forced out for doing their jobs. By way of example, so using this Eastern District of Virginia case, prosecutors recommended against the bringing charges against Jim Comey. The rank-and-file prosecutors in the office did not believe that there was evidence to proceed with the case. They were either removed or reassigned from the matter. Rather than simply take no for an answer and understand that sometimes you just can't bring the prosecutions you want to bring because the law doesn't support them, the Trump administration seems far more willing to simply reassign or push career attorneys, not even attorneys, but career attorneys out of the way. And it seems to be happening at an alarming rate across the administration.
INSKEEP: It's really interesting. We hear about this unitary theory of executive government, of the executive, in which the idea is the president should be able to control everything. Federal agencies shouldn't be independent.
WILLIAMS: Yeah.
INSKEEP: But I can think back to previous presidents in which there was a little bit of restraint. Maybe in theory you would say, I control the Justice Department. But you would also listen to people who tell you there's no evidence to go after this person.
WILLIAMS: Right. I mean, that's true to a point. Of course, the president controls the executive branch. Of course, the president appoints the cabinet, including the attorney general of the United States. However, particularly going back to Watergate, Steve, there has been a clear separation between the Justice Department and the White House when it comes to personnel and the conduct of day-to-day matters over there, because we as a nation simply do not want our political leaders or the president with a thumb on the scale of criminal prosecutions.
That's the most, to be lofty here, the most awesome power the government has. And it's incredibly risky, and quite frankly, autocratic for a presidential administration to be directing who gets put in jail, who gets investigated, who gets prosecuted. And so, yes, it is part of the government, but it's a different part of the government. And that extends to all criminal prosecutions, not just ones carried out by - all federal prosecutions, not just ones carried out by the Justice Department.
INSKEEP: Of the prosecutors who remain, I suppose some agree with all of this. Some may disagree. But maybe you're feeling they're trying to do some good or the most good that they can. If you were still in the Justice Department and this were happening under any president, would you have stayed?
WILLIAMS: Well, I did. You know, look, I stayed as a career attorney under the Bush administration, as a political attorney under the Obama administration. As we started by saying, Steve, it's perfectly natural for things to shift. That's fine. That's part of the game. This, though, is something vastly different. And it's just not the normal shifts in left to right, Democrat to Republican and something at times far more sinister and far more dangerous to our system of the rule of law.
INSKEEP: Elliot Williams is a former deputy assistant attorney general and CNN analyst. Thanks so much.
WILLIAMS: Take care, Steve.
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