FedSoc Webinar on the Weaponization of the Justice Department

Today at 11 a.m. Eastern time, the Federalist Society--lately the object of conspiracist rantings from White House habitue Laura Loomer, whose basic accusation that its patrons, by holding on to conservative views, are not personally loyal to Donald Trump differs from the core managerial and constitutional theory of the Trump regime only in its specifics but not in its "principles"--holds a panel titled "The Weaponization of DOJ?" Registration information is here. 

The question mark is of course unnecessary. Small and twisted minds beget small and twisted missions, and the primary mission of the ostensible leaders of the Justice Department, and the only mission of the man who is responsible for it, is vengeance against alleged enemies. (Although this appears to be more true of the White House and the FCC than of the DOJ, I imagine that if it has not already, it will soon add to its basic mission statement the corrupt exaction of financial and other forms of tribute, one of the few areas in which the Attorney General has expertise and experience.) 

I have meant for weeks to point out the necessity, for any lawyer, of watching or, if one can't stomach the visuals, reading the transcript of Trump's March 14 speech at and to the Justice Department. It seems silly--not un-lawyerly, but silly--to debate only the finer points of questions like, "Is the Trump regime lawless?" or "Is Trump weaponizing the DOJ?" when the president, in a regime devoted to the proposition that the president is the government and vice versa, actually stands up in the middle of Main Justice and makes clear that vengeance without justice is his goal. Around the time of the speech, I looked up past speeches delivered by presidents at Main Justice. Among them were speeches by Herbert Hoover, Harry S. Truman, Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama. None were terribly impressive, none were terribly objectionable--and none of them was steeped in filth, hatred, and paranoia at all, let alone in the way that Donald Trump's remarks were. No lawyer who is still a lawyer in any useful sense of the word, a lawyer can hear or read his words without visceral disgust and a renewed commitment to the defense of the rule of law against the chief executive who is its chief enemy. Not to put too fine a point on it: Trump's DOJ speech is a must-read in the same way that millions of decent people forced themselves to read Mein Kampf.