U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Jay Clayton appeared on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” and pushed back on the MSM’s attempts to frame holding the dirty elements of the Biden administration accountable as tit for tat lawfare.
Joe Kernen: Okay. So, who deserves to be the subject of a grand jury? Does Comey, from what you know about it? Any of them?
Jay Clayton: You can ask, but I’m not going to comment on this.
Joe Kernen: Okay. Do you….Does it concern you that this looks like you did lawfare to me I’m going to do lawfare to you?
Jay Clayton: I’m gonna back up. What do I think about when I go to work? That people have confidence in the Justice Department.
Joe Kernen: Okay.
Jay Clayton: That is ….that is and that’s an area where we ought to be focusing.
Joe Kernen: And so you’re concerned then.
Jay Clayton: I’m concerned over the over….I’m not talking about today. I’m concerned over the past period of …and I’ve been on all sides of it. I’ve been subjected to investigations, companies that I’ve been with. I’ve been defending people against the Justice Department. We should go to work every day behaving well.
Andrew Ross Sorkin: Can I ask just one question? A number of the cases that Joe’s referring to, there were people inside the Justice Department that didn’t want to bring those cases or thought or said that they didn’t think they were appropriate to bring. And then obviously we as the public read these headlines about how the head of those, you know, the head of those districts gets replaced by somebody who’s obviously close to the president and then all of a sudden the case is being brought and I think we’re all trying to understand how we’re supposed to think about that and whether that either undermines the credibility of the whole thing or not.
Jay Clayton: Look, I’m not going to comment on specific cases. That’s not appropriate.
Andrew Ross Sorkin: That’s why I was doing it in a sort of general area.
Jay Clayton: But let me say something that I think is important and that is members of the bar, prestigious members of the bar.I don’t think that they have been not I don’t think I don’t think that the leaders at the bar have scrutinized the Justice Department enough in the prior administration.
Becky Quick: Are you saying you think the Justice Department was weaponized?
Jay Clayton: What I’m saying is we have very prestigious lawyers who make lots of money and are very smart people and they stayed silent during the prosecutions of Donald Trump there. You did not hear from them.
Joe Kernen: No. From now we’re going to start doing it though.
Jay Clayton: Oh, yeah. That’s great. Yeah. Does that satisfy you?
Joe Kernen: No! It never does. But you’re just doing ‘whataboutism’ now.
Jay Clayton: Oh yeah?
Becky Quick: I don’t want to put words in your mouth …(crosstalk) but Jay, that’s what you’re saying. The Justice Department was weaponized in the Biden administration; that’s what you’re saying.
Jay Clayton: But we have the law schools leaders at the bar people who know the law. You know, it’s people looked to them as leaders of thought leaders and they stayed silent.
Becky Quick: While what was happening?
Jay Clayton: While the cases against a former President of the United States were proceeding at pace.
Becky Quick: So, where do we wind up with this?
Jay Clayton: We’re going to do what America does. We’re going to fight our way through it. We’re going to be honest, transparent, and fight our way through it.
Andrew Ross Sorkin: But but part of the question then is ….if each if each presidency ends up thinking that they’re weaponizing
against the previous one…
Becky Quick: Well correcting for mistakes..correcting for weaponization mistakes I would say…
Andrew Ross Sorkin: Arguably correcting for mistakes…but look, I will tell you I read the news yesterday about the President, I
don’t know if it’s true, seeking $230 million or whatever it is and maybe he’s going to give it to charity or whatnot. My preference, my personal preference would be if he wants to seek an apology or something from the Justice Department, I think that would be fair. I think that asking for the money from the taxpayer becomes very very complicated because then all of a sudden the taxpayer is on the hook and they’re saying ‘what’s going on here’ right. Like you understand…
Jay Clayton: but you have your preference. Canvas the American people. The personal preferences are vast.
Joe Kernen: You’d rather it go into solar panels or something, I guess? The 230 million. Windmills?
Andrew Ross Sorkin: No. I just think it’s very hard I think it’s very hard for the President…
Becky Quick: I’d rather it go after the people who are actually perpetrating it.
Andrew Ross Sorkin: I just think it’s very hard for the President to negotiate with people he appointed for a settlement like that.
Jay Clayton: But would policy do it?
Joe Kernen: And so you think he can shake down his own Justice Department because he appointed his…
Andrew Ross Sorkin: By default. Even if you don’t think he can, the perception will be that.
Watch:
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