every four years orca so, the justice department puts out this guidance, limiting what federal investigators can and should say publicly about candidates who are being investigated on the principle that these investigations should not interfere with our democratic process. donald trump was all too happy to seize on jim comey s decision to abandon that policy. during the fbi s investigation into hillary clinton back in 2016. but when the fbi opened its own investigation into donald trump, what did donald trump do? trump fired comey. and as trump sought re-election, his attorney general bill barr in february 2020, decided to issue a new election sensitivities policy, ordering that in addition to the standard rules, any new investigation of a presidential candidate must be cleareden by him. as rachel first reported on monday, attorney general merrick garland has issued his own
and where they are head. what leads they are following. what we don t know for sure what is happening inside the justice department we do have enough fragments to try to piece together a picture and right now that picture is starting to look like one of a justice department that meticulously tried to avoid politics and as a result of that, it appears to be frantically playing catch-up on mao what merrick garland today himself described as the most important investigation of our time. joining us now are a reporter forin the wall street journal covering the justice department, and david road, executive director for the news for the new ecyorker.com. thanks for joining us. sadie, i want to start with you. you cover the justice department every taday. it is not often that the attorney general takes questions like he did today and certainly for the american public to see it inda realtime.li he was clearly prepared to respond to the recent criticism a lot of people have been leveling at th
department doing to hold donald trump accountable? we know from reporting in the new york times that theun juste department was astonished and jolted by cassidy hutchinson s testimony, recounting her experience inside the white house on that day, january 6th. we know the justice department has also requested access to witness testimony, gathered by the committee. the wall street journal is reporting this week that the justice department is now ramping up its resources into the investigation into trump s plot to overturn the election. and today, attorney general merrick garland took questions from reporters. he was asked directly about what the justice department is doing to investigate trump s efforts to overturn the election. listen. there is a lot of speculation about what the justice department is doing, what it s not doing, what its duties are, what the duties aren t, and there will continue to be that speculation. that s because a central tenet of the way in which the justic
today if the d.o.j. has the necessary resources and he responded that the department could always use more resources, but that it can still accomplish its mission and that the people at d.o.j. are committed to it. how does that square with your own reporting of what is happening behind the scenes? well, no matter how you cut it, this is just a massive, massiveou investigation. already, the justice department has brought almost 900, charges against almost 900 people and those are folks who are sort of directly involved in the events of that day. so we expect there to be more arrests. and we expectex there to be, wh looks to be an expanding investigation. the attorney general as you noted today said that the justice department could always use more resources for, this but as recently as march, we saw, you know, a job posting go up, seeking more prosecutors to work on the elements of this investigation, and we know that there has been a prosecutor assigned from maryland, and thomas wynd
it s very unusual that the letter that was sent asking for the transcripts, usually i don t think they have been public. theresc are often, you know, du investigations, there will be a congressional committee looking into some sort of scandal, and then the justice department looking into a criminal case, so that s what is unusual. mine to the credit of the january 6th committee, and they have an easier job and prove things in court beyond a reasonable doubt but what is different is the january 6th committee has done a job of focusing squarely on donald trump, his corruption, his legal intent, that he knew what he was doing, that he knew he lost the election, that he knewdo the mo would have possible charges for obstructing a proceeding and the committee has done a great job of focusing on trump himself and i believe the department has been slow and trying to catch up. and bennie thompson says they didn t want to release all of