STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
Ankush Khardori is with us next. He's a former federal prosecutor in the Department of Justice during Trump's first term and now writes about national legal issues for Politico. Good morning.
ANKUSH KHARDORI: Morning.
INSKEEP: What message does it send when a federal agent shoots someone in the head, and the focus of the investigation is not the agent but the background of somebody who was nearby who was talking back to the agent?
KHARDORI: Look, we are very, very far afield from normal rules of the road here and how this should be operating. Senator Klobuchar is exactly right. None of this is on the level. This appears to be a wholly politicized investigation. It is entirely backwards. I mean, I think every American, every person who has seen some of those videos, can recognize the absurdity of not even investigating the law enforcement officer who shot this poor woman and instead focusing on the widow. It is offensive, and it is simply not designed to produce a just outcome. It is apparently designed to serve the political interests of the White House. And I think it's more evidence - not that we - there's been any shortage of it over the last year. It's more evidence that this Justice Department has really been absorbed into a sort of a political instrument of the White House on the biggest and most important issues.
INSKEEP: We should be clear here. If they did an investigation of the agent, they might well find he was legally justified. The law tends to lean very much in favor of law enforcement in these cases, but they're not investigating, so far as we know. Does the Justice Department have any legal or ethical obligation to at least look into the shooting?
KHARDORI: I think absolutely they do. I mean, there's a potential crime on video. To your point, we don't know what the outcome of the - of a independent and credible investigation would be. That is an important point to preserve. But there's no situation in which, you know, a shooting like this should begin - an investigation should begin with the widow and not be focused on the shooter, at least in the first instance, to assess that person's actions and the reasonableness of those actions. And the fact that they haven't even brought the officer into the ambit of the investigation is a very, very big signal that they're not interested in investigating, much less charging him if charges were appropriate. And, you know, they seem to want a political outcome.
INSKEEP: Is this a signal to other agents they can open fire?
KHARDORI: It is. It is, unfortunately. Look, one of the things that an investigation like this, when done correctly and is focused on the officer and potentially even generates a prosecution - one of the objectives is deterrence. It's deterrence, right? And that proposition applies to a situation just like this just as much as it applies to shoplifting or murder or financial fraud. We investigate and prosecute cases because they have deterrent value as well as punitive value as well. So, yes, certainly at the margins, this is going to incentivize more behavior like this.
INSKEEP: I want people to know if they don't - you served in Trump's first term, then resigned during that term, just as these prosecutors seem to have resigned in Minnesota. Is it a hard choice? Hard to be in that situation?
KHARDORI: Look, for me, it was hard. The issue that I confronted was not nearly as salient, high-profile or even consequential. It was a difficult decision, though. And I'm sure this was a very difficult decision for these people, too, because as a lawyer, even a lawyer for the government, you know, there's a wide range of professional actions that you can undertake that are reasonable. And you may not entirely agree with the direction that your office is taking, but if the direction is, you know, within the bounds of risk, professional, reasonable judgment, that's acceptable.
There are situations, however - I confronted one; it seems like these attorneys have confronted one of their own - where you are being asked to do something that is outside of the bounds of reasonable prosecutorial discretion. And I'm sure it's difficult for them personally, but I would imagine on principle, they're feeling perfectly fine about it because, honestly, there are not better - many better reasons to quit your job as a prosecutor than this one.
INSKEEP: You alluded to the Justice Department being turned into a political tool of the White House. And I want to take an extra moment here, if you have it, to dig into that because these resignations that we've seen in Minnesota are among many. Many people have been fired. Many people have been dismissed from the very first days of the administration. Many people have resigned. Even U.S. attorneys appointed by the president have stepped back rather than do things that they have been ordered to do. Looking at it from the outside but having once been on the inside, how much has the Justice Department changed for better or worse over the past year?
KHARDORI: There has been a very, very significant change, and it's been for the worse over the last year. In fact, the pace and the breadth of the change exceeded my expectations, and my expectations were not positive going into this administration. We have seen a year of Pam Bondi, the attorney general, and Todd Blanche, the deputy attorney general, just fully willing to do what the White House demands of them, requests of them in terms of prosecuting their political opponents. They've hollowed out major components of the department focused on things like financial fraud and other things, redirecting those resources to immigration. The rhetoric coming from the leaders is political and partisan and unprofessional. And I think, you know, over the course of the last year, we've seen plenty of this. This is a continuation of this trend, and I do think it is going to continue for the foreseeable future, unfortunately.
INSKEEP: Ankush Khardori is a former federal prosecutor, now a senior writer for Politico. Thanks for the extra time. Really appreciate it.
KHARDORI: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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