The Daily Beast Podcast - Project 2025’s Plan for the DOJ May Be the Scariest Part

Episode Date: August 4, 2024

The Project 2025 plans that are implied rather than stated are alarming, one legal expert tells The New Abnormal—specifically, how the DOJ would crack down on illegal immigration. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi, I'm Andy Levy, former Fox News and CNN-HLN guy and current Campbell News conscientious objector. I'm a former libertarian who now sits comfortably on the left. Hi, I'm Danielle Moody, former educator and recovering lobbyist. But today, I'm an unapologetic, woke commentator on America's threats to democracy. And I'm producer Jesse Kedden, and I'm here to make sure things don't go too far off the rails. We're here to have fun, smart conversations with some of the most knowledgeable and entertaining people in politics, media, and beyond. Our goal is to try and make sense of our current crazy world, our new abnormal, and hopefully even make you laugh through the tears.

Welcome back to another Sunday bonus episode of The New Abnormal, and we thank you so much for being here. We're wrapping up our vacation, but that does not mean we did not record a most excellent episode in advance just for you. Today we're going to be talking to the former BuzzFeed legal editor and deputy editor for legal affairs at Grid News, the law dork himself Chris Skidner, and he's going to walk us through everything there is to know about Project 2025's plans for the Justice Department. But first, let's have some fun.

Okay, so you get no opposition. What's one policy that you would implement? You don't have to get it passed through anything you could just get it done, that you think would really make America a lot better. Everyone has to be nice to Andy. I'm going to say equal pay. I've become pilled on that. It's money out of politics, starts to fix it.

everything else, and that's the real thing, is that we need even stronger than Citizens United, and then we could actually fix things in this country. Those are both good, but everyone has to be nice to Andy is much better. Now, is it you specific or all Andy's? No, it's just me. Okay, okay. No opposition. What's one policy area where you think your political opponents have a point, even if you

disagree with them? I don't know if this qualifies as policy area, but just the general idea that the system is rigged. And I think, you know, Bernie Sanders said this, you know, before Trump. And he was absolutely correct. It's just, you know, what's bizarre is that the right-wing, quote-unquote, populists somehow believe the system is rigged and they believe it's bad that the system is rigged. But they simultaneously support the biggest rigors of them all. Yes. But I think there, I think the idea that the system is fucked up is correct. John Edwards said this when he was running in two Well, I remember about him was that luscious hair.

Okay. I'm going to take a page out of Andy's book, and I'm going to say that the immigration system is broken. Republicans say that all the time. It absolutely is true. They continue to, you know, beat a dead horse in it, and there's opportunities to fix it, but I think that they do have a point because it is broken. That's good. Shemus here, I get to finally ask a question.

Now, reflecting on the erudite musings of the late DMX, Where to hood, where to hood, where to hood at? I'm compelled to pose you a similar question. Considering the alarming rise in temperatures and ocean levels, how soon do you anticipate the next major environmental crisis and what political actions should be prioritized to avert this impending catastrophe? I really would have preferred for you to have wrapped that line. Yeah, Seamus, really, you got to be better at that.

Yeah. When do we think it's going to happen? I mean, it's happening every single day. There was like record-breaking tornadoes across the Midwest. There was apparently tornadoes upstate New York. Like, you know, there are wildfires that are burning right now in California. We've had hurricane barrel that basically flattened St. Vincent and St. Lucia. Like, you know, what action should be taken?

There should be penalties that are put on all of the industrialized nations that created this problem because it is the poorer nations that are the ones that are experiencing all of the devastation. Yeah, I just want to point out that last Monday was the hottest day on record on Earth. And it broke the record that was set last Sunday. So, yeah, it's here now. And I think all political actions should be prioritized to deal with this because this shit is existential. Agreed. So where would you build your billionaire bunker?

For people who don't know, all the billionaires are building apocalypse bunkers in places like New Zealand. Douglas Rushkoff has an amazing book on this called Survival of the Richest. Mm. Mm-mm-mm. Where would I build my bunker? Because it has to be so... Okay. But it's a bunker, so it's underground, yeah?

I mean, technically it's probably above-end underground. I'm going to go with either Italy or Greece. It's really for the water and the food and the wine that's there. It's not much of a bunker. mentality. I know, but I'm thinking if it is really the end of days, don't I want to be satiated on my way out? I thought similar

that I'm probably going to Louisiana because I could recruit some good chefs locally for the bunker. Good Lord. Your bunker's going to flood. I know. I'm like, what kind of munker is that? There's some high grounds in the center of the state. Jesse just wants to be on Bourbon Street

regardless. He's going to be annoying. You have not thought this through. Frenchman Street. Frenchman, Frenchman, Frenchman Street. Andy? I have thought this through. And Andy's like, I do have a bunker, but I'm not telling you the location. Well, first of all, if I did, I wouldn't tell you, yes.

I would say Antarctica, if the Wi-Fi were better. What? It's cold. Well, here's the thing. And then I was thinking, like, Iceland, because for a really white country, it has really good music. And then I started thinking, it's like, I'm not really a cold weather person at all, but, like, lately all the countries that seem good to me, or like, I just said, like,

Iceland or the Nordic countries. And I'm hoping that this is like a response, an internal response to the realization that climate change is already here. And I need to live in a colder climate because everything's going to be heating up. I'm hoping it's that and not some kind of latent racism. Hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Because I realize every single place I've picked is like incredibly white. And I'm like, but no, I don't mean it that way. Hmm. But don't you? I know. I need to do some self-reflection, probably issue apology and a promise to do better. That's so much for being that ally.

I know. What it really means is a lie. I think, though, to be fair, I think once you're in a bunker, there are no allies. That's true. That's a lot of what Douglas' book is about. That's actually how the book starts.

There are a few people I consider indispensable when it comes to understanding the Supreme Court and constitutional legal issues in general, and one of them is Chris guide her. So when I saw that he had written a piece called Project 2025's plans for the Justice Department at his most excellent legal newsletter Lawdorke at LawDork.com, I knew I had to have him back on. Thankfully, he said yes. And Chris, the former BuzzFeed legal editor and deputy editor for legal affairs at Grid News, joins me now. Chris, thanks so much for being here.

Hey, Andy. I hope I buttered you up enough in that interview. Here we go. Yes. All right, let's get right into this and talk about the Department of Justice section of Project 2025. First things first, who wrote this section and why is that of particular interest? There's two big points of this. This is written by Gene Hamilton, who worked in the Trump administration, is the legal director at Stephen Miller's led America First Legal. This is one of those key areas where any attempt by Trump to claim that, that like this isn't him is just laughable because this is literally his guy.

On another part, which becomes relevant throughout, but is notable up top, if you recognize the name Gene Hamilton, you probably remember him from such highlights of the Trump administration as child separation. He was one of the big defenders at DHS, who is all over the memos for much of the most aggressively anti-immigrant moves in the Trump administration. Interesting. And of course, you noted that Trump is trying to distance himself from Project 2025. And as is Stephen Miller. Yeah, hilariously. Stephen Miller is, which I just find amusing because it's so stupid. I mean, America First Legal is literally on the like advisory board of Project 2025. And in Gene Hamilton's little footnote, like his acknowledgement section of this chapter,

he literally says that the staff at America First Legal Foundation deserve special mention for their assistance in the preparation of this chapter. Amazing. While quote, juggling other response. like bringing lawsuits to try to, like, harm trans people and trying to find white and Asian people to sue businesses and try to extend the anti-affirmative action rulings of the Supreme Court to private business. Yeah, just normal days at the office for normal, ordinary Americans. So let's get into what the section itself says.

What would you say is when it comes to the Department of Justice the primary goal of Project 2025? Yeah, is to make this agency, which we have constantly talked about as not an independent agency, like we think of the FCC or something, but as an agency that comes up with independent judgment about how to handle things, that there's sort of a separation of church and state between the White House and the Justice Department. This is not only aimed at ending that, which is a part of sort of the long-term goals of people like Bill Barr and creating this unitary executive, but even further than that, that it's like, let's turn the Justice Department into the aggressive enforcement arm of the Trump administration. And not just across the federal government,

but down into state and local governments as well. So to be clear, in the eyes of former senior Trump official, Gene Hamilton, who is the writer of the DOJ section of Project 2025, who works for and with Stephen Miller, one of the most senior Trump confidants, the DOJ should not even be the slightest bit independent from the president. Do I have that right? Yeah, this is a quote. The department falls under the direct supervision and control of the president of the United States as a complete. opponent of the executive branch. Thus, and putting aside criminal prosecutions that can warrant different treatment, litigation decisions must be made consistent with the president's agenda. What's weird to me is it feels like the fact that they want this doesn't really square with

Trump and the GOP's ridiculous whining that under President Biden, that's what the DOJ has been. Shouldn't they be applauding that? Yeah, this is the weaponization of government. This is the thing that you often heard in the first Trump administration and in Trump's earlier campaigns, every accusation is an admission. Yeah, no, for sure. It's important to note that this is not just like journal writings. This is not just like Gene Hamilton's fantasy. Right, right. This is not his dream journal. That part that I read is a bit of an aspirational thing. The plan that he lays out, it's a 28-page plan. It lays out specific things that they want to do. Like one of the big things is essentially removing the FBI's independence, bringing it more closely under the Department of Justice so that the FBI director would more closely be accountable in meetings and on a day to day basis.

like not only with the attorney general who can like call him in for a meeting, but I think the plan is to have it be essentially under the criminal division of the Department of Justice. So it would essentially just turn the FBI into a partisan operation, an ideological operation that works under whoever the political person that the Trump administration should. chooses to run the criminal division. So less of a law enforcement organization and more of an agenda enforcement organization. Yeah. That is just wild. And I don't want to go back to the days of Jay Edgar Hoover. God knows nobody does. But this sounds like it would essentially be that, except instead of the FBI director's agenda, it would be the president's agenda. Yeah. It is taken as that this is not only an error correction.

It is actually an agenda setting. Like, this is not just about like, oh, we want to make sure that out of control agencies are more closely monitored. This is an affirmative statement that what those entities do must be directly aligned with the president's political agenda. This doesn't even apply only to the federal government. Like, it's important to realize that one of the significant powers that DOJ has is how much money it gives out to state and local entities. Like, we always, we hear about, like, the COPS grants and how that program is utilized by the Department of Justice. One of the things that this talks about doing is basically resetting all of the funding mechanisms of the, of the DOJ to do the same thing that I just went through that they're saying they need to do with

the FBI. They want to make sure that the actual way that you get money as a local entity is essentially to bid allegiance to the president and his political agenda. Now, Chris, I don't want to take issue with you, but my understanding is that conservatives are very big on states' rights. So how is this possible. Yeah, I mean, they're not. I mean, this is basically like Texas writ large. In Texas, over the past few years, we've had a handful of cities and counties that have had success in electing, for example, people who care about enforcing the law in a way that respects people's rights and who are willing to look at. at different sorts of programs that will actually improve people's lives and not just put them in jail or not just put them on death row, especially in the case of Texas.

In response to a handful of moderately reform prosecutors being elected, we're not even talking about like the Chesa types or the Larry Krasner type that we have in Philadelphia. we're talking about like the Texas version of a reform prosecutor getting collected. In response to that, there have been all of these efforts to essentially make it impossible for local prosecutors, city councils to take to engage in criminal justice reform measures. This would essentially be a national version of that. And down to they talk about it as well. of law deficiency in Gene Hamilton's Project 2025 chapter. And he writes, jurisdictions suffering from deficiencies in the rule of law warrant as appropriate within our federal system,

greater attention and additional federal resources. In other words, they want the Department of Justice to go around and look at the counties that have elected reformed prosecutors and basically assign a U.S. attorney to that district in the federal courts and have that U.S. attorney's goal be to go through federal laws and find ways of enforcing laws that the voters there have chosen not to enforce in who they have elected, not to prioritize in who they elect. There's a provision that literally talks about that this includes drug possession. So we're looking again in their dream world of locking people up for 20 years for having like an ounce of marijuana or whatever. Yeah, whatever the lowest level of what federal law gives.

Yeah. Like so yeah, it might be a little more that the federal law to justify being interstate commerce. Right. But they are full steam ahead encouraging that. Wow. I want to move to another subject because it's one that MAGA loves to talk about, and that would be immigration and more specifically how much they hate it. How does Project 2025 envision the Justice Department's role here? The DOJ, they basically retrofit in immigration as a key part of the Justice Department and say that the DOJ and its leadership must intentionally prioritize fulfillment of the department's immigration-related responsibility.

And that includes, again, issuing guidance that will apply down to the U.S. attorney level. So they're not just talking about having like an immigration strike force that three DOJ attorneys work with DHS in the Trump administration. They want to weaponize every U.S. attorney's office to do the same within their local jurisdictions, specifically. says one of the most frightening words that you can ever imagine in a document like this that's already sort of painting outside the lines says the next administration should take a, quote, creative and aggressive approach to tackling these dangerous criminal organizations at the border. And it specifically even suggests that this quote could include use of active duty military personnel at the board.

Good Lord. Whenever they're considering something that is too unpopular for them to even put in writing, like you've heard enough about what they put in Project 2025, not just in this discussion, but in anything that you've read or heard

before this, like, they're willing to say it all. Like, they're talking about enforcing the Comstock Act. They're talking about like basically like doing all but banning trans people from existing. They're going all in.

And so when something is so extreme that they're talking about it in euphemisms of creative and aggressive approach, be very frightened. Gene Hamilton sees no end to how the DOJ can support the in effect legalization of creating a war zone on the border.

We've heard from everything they've said during the Biden administration. they absolutely would like to claim. Absolutely. You mentioned the Comstock Act, and I want to talk about this other subject that is near and dear to Maga's withered hearts, which is reproductive freedom and much like immigration, more specifically, how much they hate it. So talk about what Project 2025 has to say here, because they do actually call for the

enforcement of the Constock Act in Project 2025. Everybody knows how unpopular the Republican position is on abortion. Everybody has seen how poorly it's done at the polls. Even Donald Trump has tried to fudge his way around that with things that aren't factually going to have any real effect. But here's the truth hidden in the midst of this 900-page document. The plan calls for a campaign to enforce the Comstock Act, which if you don't know, there's several things that that can do,

but it's a nearly 100-year-old law that was basically like a, federal vice squad. And one of the elements of it is to prohibit anything to be sent in the males that can be used for abortion. And that explicitly, they're calling for it to be used to enforce criminal penalties against anyone for the providers and distributors of abortion pills. Yeah. And, you know, I've talked to people about the Compstock Act before. And it also has to do with, you know, it would possibly become illegal to ship tools that are used at Planned Parenthood and stuff like that. I think this is another example of that creative and aggressive enforcement.

Like, they're not willing to say how far, like, the logic of criminalizing providers and distributors of abortion pills that use the mail can then mean you're saying the Comstock Act is legit and enforceable, which then means that. Anything used in abortion in the male can be criminalized. So, yeah, it can then go further. But even Project 2025 tries to couch it as we're just talking about, and by just, I mean, horribly, horrifically, largely a majority of abortions in this country take place via medication abortion. It's probably more than that now since Dobbs. But even Project 2025 is only willing to account for the fact that they are going after providers and distributors of abortion bills that use the mail.

The logic of any cases prosecuting that would not limit it to those people. And then you're certainly, even if it's not DOJ, you're going to see the Greg Abbott's and Attorney General Moody in Florida. You're going to see Luther Strange. you're going to see all of these southern AGs trying to go further and using the Comstock Act as support for passing state laws that do the same or for saying that people are attempting to violate federal laws. Chris, one of these days I'm going to have you on and we're going to talk about something really, really good that just happened. But today was not that day. But I want to thank you, as always, for coming on and lending us your knowledge for 20 minutes. And folks, go over.

to lawdork.com and read more of what Chris is putting out there. Chris, thanks so much. Thank you. Hope you enjoy checking out this episode of The New Abnormal. We're back every Tuesday, Friday, and Sunday. If you enjoyed it, please share it with a friend and keep the conversation going. This podcast is a Daily Beast production with production by Jesse Cannon and Seamus Calder. Want more great listens? Check out our comedy podcast, The Last Laugh, and our star-studded The Daily Beast podcast at the Daily Beast.com,

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