PALM BEACH, Florida — Former President Donald Trump, the 2024 GOP frontrunner for president, instructed Breitbart Information completely that Deputy Lawyer Common Lisa Monaco is the one who is definitely pulling the strings on the Division of Justice (DOJ), not Lawyer Common Merrick Garland.
Whereas increasing on his earlier level about how Democrat President Joe Biden is “surrounded by vicious folks,” Trump famous that Monaco appears to be the individual actually in cost on the Justice Division and that Garland is only a figurehead.
“Lisa Monaco, she’s actually working the Justice Division, reasonably viciously and reasonably illegally, and that can be came upon over the subsequent yr and a half, I predict,” Trump instructed Breitbart Information within the more-than-two-hour-long unique interview at Mar-a-Lago in late December.
Trump mentioned that Monaco is “very pleasant with” Andrew Weissman, who served as common counsel on the FBI and later was a high official in then-Particular Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Trump. Weissman is now within the non-public sector.
“Weissman is her boss,” Trump mentioned. “Weissman suffers from main Trump Derangement Syndrome. All these guys do. They’ve been after me for seven years. They haven’t completed nicely.”
Monaco served in now-former President Barack Obama’s White Home for a number of years as a Homeland Safety adviser to the president. She was notably shut with Susan Rice, who was Obama’s nationwide safety adviser and later joined the Biden White Home as a home coverage adviser. Rice has since left the Biden White Home.
A number of Republican sources each inside and out of doors Congress have lengthy talked about how Monaco performs an outsized position as deputy legal professional common overseeing the Division of Justice. One former congressman instructed Breitbart Information that it’s going to come out ultimately that she is much extra concerned in a lot of the DOJ’s selections than it seems.
Garland, a former appellate Decide whom Obama nominated as a Supreme Courtroom justice candidate however Senate Republicans refused to substantiate earlier than the 2016 election, was later appointed by Biden because the legal professional common. Garland’s time because the legal professional common has been marred with controversy over politicization on the Division of Justice, notably along with his choice to permit the varied investigations and prosecutions into Biden’s main political opponent—Trump—to proceed.
After the extremely controversial FBI raid at Mar-a-Lago, Garland lastly got here out publicly in a uncommon assertion to tv cameras to say that he personally licensed it.
Monaco, for her half, has, as lately as only a couple weeks in the past, defended the Justice Division public from Trump’s allegations of weaponization and politicization.
“These claims bear no resemblance to the Justice Division that I do know,” Monaco mentioned in response to Trump in an interview with ABC Information’s Pierre Thomas, printed simply earlier than Christmas in 2023:
The Justice Division that I do know is full of devoted women and men, investigators, attorneys, prosecutors, analysts, skilled employees who stand up day-after-day, Pierre, they stand up day-after-day with out regard to who’s within the White Home or who’s in Congress.
Some main congressional committees have additionally been investigating Monaco’s position contained in the Justice Division and on this ongoing politicized nature of regulation enforcement. In 2023, Home Judiciary Committee chairman Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) sought a congressional briefing from Monaco on findings that Particular Counsel John Durham printed in regards to the FBI’s concentrating on of Trump throughout his presidency. Monaco’s position in issues is extra more likely to turn out to be a extra central focus of congressional investigation, as nicely, within the coming weeks and months as lawmakers uncover paperwork and testimony about her decision-making from the quantity two perch on the DOJ. Whether or not Garland is de facto in cost over there, too, may turn out to be a central focus of the 2024 presidential marketing campaign, particularly if Trump wins the GOP nomination, as most count on him to, and as he fends off prices from his opponent’s administration coming into the 2024 common election.