U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes laid into Department of Justice lawyers Friday for telling DOJ Tax Division attorneys to ignore congressional subpoenas even as prosecutors sent former Trump aide Peter Navarro to prison for doing just that.
Politico reports that she was appalled by the blatant hypocrisy:
“There’s a person in jail right now because you all brought a criminal lawsuit against him because he did not appear for a House subpoena,” Reyes said, referring to the recent imprisonment of Peter Navarro, a former Trump trade adviser, for defying a subpoena from the Jan. 6 select committee. “And now you guys are flouting those subpoenas. … And you don’t have to show up?”
“I think it’s quite rich you guys pursue criminal investigations and put people in jail for not showing up,” but then direct current executive branch employees to take the same approach, the judge added. “You all are making a bunch of arguments that you would never accept from any other litigant.”
She certainly looks annoyed in this picture:
The House Judiciary Committee sued in March to enforce its subpoena of DOJ attorneys Mark Daly and Jack Morgan, requiring them to testify in the committee’s investigation of Hunter Biden’s possible tax crimes. The Justice Department argues that forcing them to take questions would violate the separation of powers.
Reyes, a Biden appointee, demanded to know why the Justice Department thinks some people must show up for congressional subpoenas but others can simply ignore them:
“I imagine that there are hundreds, if not thousands of defense attorneys … who would be happy to hear that DOJ’s position is, if you don’t agree with a subpoena, if you believe it’s unconstitutional or unlawful, you can unilaterally not show up,” the judge said.
She grew more agitated when DOJ lawyers seemed unwilling to even agree to a compromise:
Reyes also sounded stunned when Gilligan refused to commit to instructing the two subpoenaed lawyers to show up if the House dropped its objection to allowing government counsel to sit in the room.
“It would be a different situation,” Gilligan said. “I cannot answer that now.”
“Are you kidding me?” the judge responded.
She didn’t spare the House lawyers, however, indicating that she wasn’t buying their position on attorney-client privilege:
Indeed, while Reyes was withering in her attacks on the DOJ’s position, she was similarly unflinching in her criticism of the House for its stance in the dispute — particularly its claim that line lawyers working on the Hunter Biden tax probe are not entitled to attorney-client privilege.
She ended the theatrical hearing by ordering the DOJ to find a workable deal.
“I don’t think the taxpayers want to fund a grudge match between the executive and the legislative,” she said. “Bad cases make bad law. … This is a bad, bad case for both of you.”
The DOJ’s position on this matter once again shows their blatant two-tiered view of justice—Peter Navarro sits in a Miami prison cell for defying a subpoena, but Hunter Biden is walking around a free man and enjoying the White House Easter Egg roll despite blowing off his own order to appear. Meanwhile, the Department is counseling its own lawyers to defy the House.
Politico called the judge’s takedown of the DOJ a “remarkable, frenetic thrashing,” and I for one hope they get plenty more of that as more and more people wake up to how profoundly they’ve politicized and weaponized the department.
