Last week, the Justice Department announced that it would not charge Rachael Rollins, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Massachusetts, despite a referral from the DOJ’s Office of the Inspector General (OIG), which found evidence that she lied to investigators and may have improperly sought to influence an election. Rollins resigned from office on Friday. …
Now, the Justice Department is considering charges against Trump for false statements given to investigators on classified material at Mar-a-Lago. (He also faces other possible legal action, of course, including potential state charges in Georgia for election law violations.)
With Rollins, after an investigation found that she lied to investigators, the DOJ refused to file any charges at all. It is unclear what the DOJ felt was lacking in those findings or the underlying evidence. However, as shown by prior declinations — in cases like the contempt referral against former Attorney General Eric Holder, or the determination that former FBI Director James Comey removed FBI material and, through a friend, leaked it to the media — the Justice Department often seems to find insurmountable problems when asked to charge a fellow prosecutor or investigator.
[There are two standards of justice in Merrick Garland’s Department of Justice — one for Republicans and conservatives, and another for Democrats and progressives. As Turley points out, this problem goes back to the Obama era, but seems to have grown significantly in the Biden administration. — Ed]
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