Transcripts For CSPAN2 Discussion On Reimagining The Rule Of Law 20240712

So speaking of funding gaps. The Brennan Center for justice hosting a discussion on how the government should respond to protests. Whetherthe response should be different for Peaceful Protesters and anarchists and what the response could be. Democracy and equal protection under the law. We are a nonpartisan 501 c 3 . We do not participate in elections or endorse or oppose candidates in any way and we are very grateful to be producing todays event with the nyu John Brenneman center which advocates for civil debate on politics and Public Policy and nyu votes which works to give every nyu student the information they need to vote. I am especially grateful to be introducing an event with some of the countries most important thinkers on what i think is one of themost urgent issues we face and theres a lot of competition. Weve been witnessing a relentless andunprecedented series of attacks on the twin foundations of our democratic system. Elections and the rule of law. They are not unrelated. The president has made repeated threats to subvert the election , assault on the attorney general and military proposals on vote suppression and perhaps most chillingly refusing to commit to abide by the election results. Some are worried the rule of law has been so eroded in this country it may be possible to literally steal an election and we think there are strong legal and institutional safeguards against that but the dramatic erosion of the rule of law in recent years is unmistakable. Weve seen Law Enforcement mechanized for partisan and political gain. Rest of politically motivated prosecutions againstpolitical adversaries , actual interference in prosecution in favor of thepresident s political allies and friends. And the improper use of the military response to protests andcreate political theater. Weve seen politically motivated attacks on science and the scientific integrity of government institutions and the Brennan Center has been tracking the impact of that on the health response. Receiving administration politicized neutral institutions and federal government and the Census Bureau to thecenter for Disease Control , to the Weather Service area and more broadly we have witnessed relentless string of cases, many unpunished of Police Violence against black and brown people in america. Utilization of those communities by people who are charged with protecting them. In short, we are facing a roll of prices like other crises, this one has its roots in problems that predate this administration. Our country is reckoning with racial violence and systemic racism is long overdue. We have tolerated the injustices and lawlessness directed at black and brown communities too long. The stream of abuses at the federal level and its made possible by longer standing erosion of democratic and rule of law norms. And one thing this administration has made abundantly clear is that the guardrails of that we have traditionally relied upon to check abuses of power in government are too flimsy. And thats why the Brennan Center convene a National Task force on rule of law and democracy is a group of eminent cross ideological and cross Party Individuals with experience working at the highest level of democratic and republican administrations , federal and state Level Mission is to shore up guardrails against the abuse of federal government power they are cochaired by former us attorney free and governor christine, who are with us today and the other members include former solicitor general john barley who is also joining us, former delaware governor mike castle, former white house advisor and professor eddie, former secretary of defense chuck hagel. Former us attorney captain David Iglesias and former director of the office of government ethics amy comstock. The work of this task force has been to create legislative proposals to shore up executive power safeguarding the rule of law and enforcing ethics standards preventing political attacks on science within federal government, all without undermining the proper functioning of the executive branch. There proposals would put teeth into the unwritten rules both parties agreed to follow in the past and every single one of their proposals is not under attack in legislation pending before congress that should be a priority forthe next congress. Of course, theres much more that we need to do to build a National Commitment to the rule of law and in which every person is truly equal before the law so to discuss these issues and more im delighted to turn this over to my colleague and jan meter, he is Deputy Director of the Brennan Center Election Reform Program and thank you all forjoining us. The new there, thank youso much wendy. The panel panelist we had 20 yesterday need no introduction. Im going to keep it very brief but before us was that United States attorney for the Southern District of new york from 2009 to 2017. Before that he was a prosecutor at the department of justice and also chief counsel to senator Chuck Schumer and today of course he is the host of stay tuned and the cochair of our National Task force that wendymentioned. Janine nelson is the associate director counsel at the naacp Legal Defense education fund. And practitioner of civil rights. Litigation in the country prior to that she was a professor at st. Johns law school and is a noted scholar ofboth constitutional and civil rights issues. Don really was the 46th solicitor general of the United States really is also a member of our National Task force as wendy noted. Currently, she is a partner at monger told in olson, a renowned law firm and prior to that was also a partner at jenner and locke where ihad the privilege of working under him briefly. Andfinally , last but definitely not least Christine Todd whitman with the 50th governor of new jersey and also the ninth administrator of the United States Environmental Protection agency serving under president george w. Bush. Currently the president of whitman strategies and as wendy noted the cochair of our nationaltask force. So with that, i would like to come in with the first question. And im going to address that to our cochairs of our Task Force Governor whitman and both of you have been speaking and writing about the issues that are on the front page from the president s test returns to the politicization of Law Enforcement for years. So some might say you were a bit pressing on these issues. My question for you is theres a lot going on in the polls right now so maybe you could talk a little bit about why people should care and also why these issues should be a focus for policymakers. And i think maybe if you want to go first and will turn to governor whitman. Its good to be with all of you, thank you for the introduction and its great to be with those. We have a large online audience so pleased to be with you on something so important. And michaelpanelist as well. You know, people have said from time to time may you live in Interesting Times. Our times are a little bit too interesting and your question goes to this issue that we have of how many problems can we face as a nation. And obviously one of the most important things happening right now and one of the most devastating things the country has faced is this global pandemic. More than 200,000 people dead so i think its fair of your question to be when people are dying, how do we have time and energy to focus on issues like rule of law or norms . Those things tend to be luxuries in a democracy. I dont look at it that way. Obviously we need to care about science and science is one of the things the Task Force Governor whitman and i cochaired have been talking about the same time were trying to stave off disease and trying to get our country safe on the pandemic we have to think not on the values of our country are. At some point were going to come out of the pandemic openly sooner rather than later at what cost to our institutions. I also see a parallel between the issues that the challenges facing the Justice Department and challenges facing institutions dealing with the pandemic and it comes to an issue of independence, expertise. Truth. All those things i think factor into this issue of rule of law. Just thought of the attacks on the justice of department of defense, attacks on the department of justice rankandfile lawyers who have basic expertise in the cases of the day that they bring and that they try to and when appropriate they dismiss. But those same things in those same facts and challenges are having with other institutions also are supposed to be independent and i think laypeople understand even more so the cdc or the nih. And to me theyre part of the same problem. An idea that if youre an administration who cares about politics over justice, or care about politics over medicine, and over epidemiology, then youre going to us to ruin and in a matter of the pandemic, that brings us to ruin with respect to human lives with respect to the department of justice and rule of law that sometimes can affect human lives and it is a matter of life and death, for george floyd was a matter of life and death is also fundamental to what our values are partly a country in which everyone is treated equally before the law or are we a country like some other nations around the world where the president gets todecide because he has the power of being the chief of the executive branch. Going to bring the Law Enforcement on you if youre an adversary and we will take away the weight of Law Enforcement against you if youre an ally and weve seen that in the flynn case, the stone case and so many others so its very important for us as a country to not lose sight of the fact that we have traditions and norms that are being trampled and that could be really choked for a long time even after the pandemic is on you and im sure governorwhitman has a lot to add that. Thank you for you thank you to the Brennan Center has always for the backup that youve given forputting this task force together and all the Panel Members for their dedication. This is a panel thats taken things very seriously as you all know we discussed these issues on and on. There is your task force on the rule of law and democracy. The rule of law is not just limited to those departments that have the obvious responsibilities of enforcing the law. When were talking about the rule of law and democracy where also talking about institutionalizing those norms that have been the guardrails for the protective protection of society andkept our government in bounds for so long. A brief mention of the pandemic. Obviously this is one of the most egregious or obvious examples of where we have gone off the guardrails because it used to be that there was a very clear respect for pure science. While policy always determined at the end of the day out you use that science, it wasnt politics and theres a differencebetween partisan politics and policy. And pure science has to be thebasis for things and what were seeing today , every day has been a dismissing of science and scientists. And looking the other way of false information going outto people so that they are confused, conflicting messages being sent to people so they dont know how to react. They dont know how to respond to this and this virus is not just a medical emergency. Its aneconomic catastrophe as well and not only have we lost over 210,000 individuals in this country alone , we have also seen earth of all the uneven impact on communities of color from this disease and the uneven impact on businesses for thosecommunities as well as Small Business overall. And big business as well, when you see whats happening with the airlines and the people who are put on furlough. They dont know whether theyre going to have to job in another week or two or a month if congress cant move forward to get some bills through and you saw that our head economist basically, the head of the fed say said today Jerome Howell that in fact they cant spend enough money on this stimulus right now compared to what the damage that has been done to our economy and a lot of this is occurring as we have been ignoring those norms that we took for granted. Thats one of the things our reports, that the two of them go to. They go to common sense, bipartisan, nonpartisan ways to address these issues and to finally put some parameters around science. Transparency of science so people can see it. Governing how the executive apartment and the white house actually intercedes the Justice Department when its appropriate, isnt it and how do those things move forward. Putting some protections around the special prosecutors. And the Inspector Generals so that they can only be dismissed for cause and even then that should be reviewed. There are a lot of things here that be to the on what the actual those departments that have to enforce the law need to do. Are very much a part of the rule of claw in democracy which is what this task force has been all about. Thank you governor and theres a lot there in both remarks i want to come back to you but i like to bring jenna into the conversation and specifically today, we had a president ialdebate last tuesday. Seems like it was 100 years ago but maybe you live in Interesting Times as you said. You know, folks may have noticed that law and order was a bit of a theme particularly for the president although both candidates spoke to it and im wondering if you can talk a little bit about you know, these implications of the rule of law and what the role of law really means to you. And particularly i think it would be great if you could situate that also in whats obviously going on right now which is a historic reckoning in the ongoing struggle for Racial Justice. Thanks for that question and first let me say thank you to you and Brennan Center and its just wonderful to be part of this discussion. Im very heartened were having a conversation about the role along because i dont think that we as a society do it often enough so i very much appreciate this opportunity to be in dialogue with such an esteemed group of speakers. Its funny, a week after the 2016 election i gave a lecture at John Jay College in new york about the topic about rethinking the phrase law and order area and examining the very visceral response that those words evoked for different segments of oursociety. And that term law and order really gained political salience in 1968 when president Richard Nixon and alabama governor George Washington wallace both campaigned on varying platforms of law and order and some of us are old enough to recall president reagans use of very coded racial appeals about socalled welfare queens to galvanize the white voteto restore law and order. You saw president hw bush famously run an ad on the revolving door leading to the Violent Crimes of an africanamerican man willie horton, often to invoke a call for law and order so that phrase has been used throughout our political history and as we just saw in last weeks debate , its used as a dog whistle. Its used two fulllength racial assessment by associating a recent protests against Police Violence lawlessness and disorder. And i just want to be clear about what the invocation of law and order is. Its not limited to any one Political Party so this is in no way i castigated of a single party. And like the Brennan Center, the naacp is nonpartisan and does not endorse parties or candidates. And law and order has been used i would say abusively and the democrats and republicans alike but what i want to point out is that it is often if not always tacitly a referendum of black people and of other people of color and the perceived need for a greater Law Enforcement against them. And weve had you know, nearly 4 years and have followed that call for law and order in time, we have become a an increasingly fanatical appeal laden with nationalism, and white supremacist overtones frankly. And the fact of the matter is in order assumes a hierarchal racial order that uses law and when that doesnt yield the desired result, it uses other means to preserve the status quo. But ill say this, at the same time you also have a deafening crescendo voices in the streets of this country and around the world to demand in very important ways their own version of law and order. There demanding a system of law that is protective of their lives or the lives of their neighbors and community members. In the same way that is protective of all lives in theory and there demanding an order of justice where police can be held accountable area and the role of law is really central to this fight for Racial Justice because at bottom the rule of law is about consistency and fairness and accountability. At all levels of government. Its the enforcement of laws to protect Constitutional Rights. Its about presenting lawlessness in the form of Police Brutality and unchecked vigilante violence against africanamericans as we are seeing more often and of course other groups but if there were a true commitment to the true concept of law and order we wouldnt have witnessed the mobilization of the National Guard and other federal resources to use brutal force against protesters in dc and portland and other us cities over the objections of state and local officials. We would not have missed Law Enforcement actively supporting and even sympathizing with far right vigilante groups or the president why advising and illegally armed 17yearold in kenosha to commit heinous killings. And we wouldnt have seen the president use his powers as we alluded to to reward political allies like Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio who used racial profiling and lied about it to a court and weve seen other examples of abuse of that president ial authority. So ill just say in the end that this interpretation and application of law and order is diametrically opposed to the rule of law and those of us who truly believe in the rule of law ignore that false equivalence at our own peril. Don, i want to bring it into the conversation and invite you to respond with everyone else. Also, another perspective actually is that you and also obviously pretty can is the experience of the attorney and the other folks in the government who actually are doing that work and are by and large, the department of justice in Public Service and how is this affecting the institution and i know that something youve spoken about before. Perhaps you can conclude that in your remarks. Thanks dan, good to see you again and its great to be able to participate in this panel with the governor and i commend the Brennan Center for the phenomenal work its doing on this vitally important set of issues. If you actually want to focus particularly on whats happening to the Justice Department and what happened really to the Justice Department since the start of President Trumps term in office, its an institution we talk about the neutrality of the rule along and how it undergirds not just our own sense that we live in a just society and that the power of government is being asked sized justly but it permeates everything that the government does and its really the Bedrock Foundation of the public sense that they can have confidence in their government. And its the destruction of that faith as we see with the fda and the cdc and so many other organizations now that we most need them. It really is a devastating tragedy for our country. And it really gets started with the department of justice early in his presidency or really from the beginning of 2017 on. President trump essentially a sledgehammer to the integrity of the department of justice area he was entering the fbi as being part of the deep state and untrustworthy molar team as being partisan and not Public Servants. Hammering at the department and it was really taking a toll over time and it was really eroding the sense of mission, of the we are lawyers in the department. But now, weve got an attorney generalwas hollowing the place out from the inside. Which is an even more extraordinary thing to behold and even more of a tragedy and to see where prosecutors like jonathan credits, the chief prosecutor for roger stone feel the need to resign after many years as a dedicated prosecutor, other career lawyers going up to congress and testify about their disquiet. And on and on, we it really is something and this is a small episode but one in stockholm with me because it involved my old office of solicitor general. The attorney general a month or so ago was trying to continue his campaign of discrediting the molar special counsel investigation and its report. He talked about members of the special counsel team and he said following, he said some of those people in trying to prove partisanship to those people were people who wrote briefs for the Obama Administration area and what he was talking about was to lawyers who had worked in the solicitor generals office, one of the was mike greven who is alegend , he knows them well, worked for republican and democratic residents and administrations alike. He was the consummate career public servant, looked up to everybody. For his commitment to the public interest, to serving the United States, not serving any partisan agenda area and to see him dragged through the mud like that so that the attorney general could score a cheap political point , it was just terrible. So when i was privileged enough to be running the usgs office, i made it a point to hire conservative republican career lawyers as well as liberal democrat career lawyers and that office because the whole point was it was supposed to be anonpartisan office that served the interests of the people of the United States. At the mission , thousands and thousands of people who work in that department , the many career lawyers and everybody else, thatshow they understand their mission. When they had the president of the United States and now the attorney general basically telling them that what theyre doing isnt worth a darn, its just a devastating thing i think for our country and its going to take an enormous, in normas amount of work. You have to not only rebuild the publics confidence in the department of justice, were going to need to rebuild the sense of confidence and integrity on the inside. Because its been so terribly, terribly damaged over the last 3 and a half years area is a colossal tragedy. Cannot add something that . Thats true throughout the federal government under this Administration Area particularly a part of the government that has anything to do with science. Certainly the epa, they lost over 900 scientists and those that have been replaced have been largely replaced type scientists who come from the very industry that are regulated i the Environmental Protection agency area you cannot expect them to be unbiased area you have to worry about the science area rebuilding that Institutional Knowledge throughout the federal government is not going to government is not going to happen overnight and we are the core force. More hours down, those who want to bring forward a statement are important that we should know around ion are scared to do that cause if it doesnt comport with the political agenda of this administration, they will find themselves reassigned. They will find themselves to other parts of the country to work, to be put in fields wherethey have no basic Institutional Knowledge. Though its just devastating to see whats happening. The undermining of people who have to go to their careers to trying to make our country safer, stronger, better. And being demonized for being told that they are worth anything, and it doesnt matter, that everything is political. Its just mindboggling to me. Particularly with justices who have the attorney general doing this is just extraordinary. I expected it with the science because the president doesnt believe in any. We need to touch the environment, it will take care of itself. I hope this coronavirus would have shown that in fact thats not the case not to mention the fires and floods and storms from Climate Change but this will take us a long time fromwhich to recover but we need to start right away. Can i mention one more institution that i think would have been a surprise for anybody to think a few years ago would have been politicized, we talked about the cdc, the department of justice which has had issues in the past and scandals in the past unlike i think weve seen this time around but the United States Postal Service. In what universe would someone have thought that the United States Postal Service which i think is the most highly respected Agency Within government, everyone loves their postal carrier and relies on postal carriers less than they used to but the idea that even that can become politicized. And expertise can be taken away, should be another example of why all of this work jives with the work that were talking about with respect to rule of law. Im glad you brought up the Postal Service because obviously the issues with the Postal Service are tied to the election. Which as we know actually are ongoing right now. We also talked about attorney bill barr who has made some statements about things like voter fraud, alleged voter fraud and im wondering if you could talk a little bit about what we should make of these interventions and what that means sort of for our broader democracy. I think interventionsis a polite word. Hopefully will have a moment to talk about this as well but the other institution we should be alarmed about coming more politicized at least in the eyes of the public and by virtue of all the imaginations of the senate and Mitch Mcconnell in particular is the Supreme Court and for those of us who are litigators and who rely on the court for justice and as a check on other parts of government, that is deeply alarming and i hope we will have an opportunity to talk about that but i want to talk about what the attorney general barr has done in connection with elections along with the president and we need to really name whats happening here. We heard the president say that he would be sending us marshals and attorneys, prosecutors, Law Enforcement and others and you heard bill barr float the idea of sending military and armed forces. This is the stuff of failing democracies that are descending towards authoritarianism and its the kind of stuff we ordinarily would be pushing back against , suggesting any of these tactics but instead we have the president of this country was also a candidate on the ballot with the aid and of veterans of the chief Law Enforcement officer of the country whose charge with enforcement and Constitutional Rights threatening to use armed forces to intimidate voters at the polls. And even if you simply take them at their word that theyre trying to deter voter fraud, youve made clear that theyre willing to use intimidation tactics to do it. And we just need to make it clear that having armed forces at the polls is patently illegal. Unless there are enemies of the United States threatening a polling site for voters at a polling site, 18 usc section 592 has made it a crime to deploy the us military or any armed federal agents to a polling place since 1948. So to even suggest this tactic is a threat to our democracy from within. And whats more, as many have pointed out including a very excellent reporting by the Brennan Center, the premise of this is entirely bogus. In person voter fraud is exceedingly rare. Its so rare that in a study that professor Justin Levitt conducted that surveyed over 20 billion votes, only 31 votes cast were prosecutable for in person voter fraud so the attorney general just like the president is peddling blatant falsehoods and rapid voter fraud but whether they attempt on these ideas or not, these falsehoods are extremely dangerous and we should understand them as part of a form of Voter Suppression and in the long and sordid history of voter intimidation that is as old as this democracy itself and especially when you look at the intimidation of black voters which jumps back to the 15th amendment and blacks being granted the right to vote in 1870. Jim crow laws and the people that led to the passage of the Voting Rights act of 1965. All these chilling messages about box is somehow forbidden ground for different people. And we dont even have to look that far back in our history. In the 1980s, the Republican National committee authored something called the National Ballot Security Task force which its very purpose was to control the people on the task force, many of them were offduty Police Officers who were armed with loaded service revolvers and they were armbands and we basically had a militia at the polls. Thankfully there was a Consent Decree to prevent that sort of intimidation but that expired in 2018 and now we see something called armies for trump. We see a new effort is a very concerning campaign with deeply militaristic overtones and is unchecked not only because theres no consent degree in place because we have a department of justice is not willing to pay any meaningful role in protecting the constitutional and civil rights of voters in this election. It has failedto enforce Voting Rights act in most instances. But a Real Department of justice that was not captured bipartisanship was using its powers under the Voting Rights act under section 382 seven reliable unusual federal observers to document potential voter intimidation and obstruction of people. Instead we see this apartment of justice engaging or at least threatening to engage in those sorts of tactics itself that is truly a breath to free and Fair Elections within our borders. Before we jump to other panelists i want the moderators privilege briefly to note that all of that is very true and the federal government behavior is disgraceful. At the Brennan Center the actual people administering the elections are the Elections Officials from around the country from our dedicated Public Servants you know, we hope everyone should vote. We should be intimidated from voting the behavior of the federal government i think in this context we can agree is disgraceful. Tell us about the lies about voter fraud and also vote by mail which as we also talked about is very, very safe and secure. But i want to get our other panelists a chance to jump in area you might have some thoughts, if you could address outlandish treatments another United States attorney in pennsylvania made , you mentioned particularly to vote by mail. The problem is when you use what are supposed to be neutral institutions whether its the cdc, Postal Service or i think the most compellingly department of justice to promote some political and. And sometimes political ends and the advanced by a political narrative and this president has made very clear that all hands on deck. To promote the narrative that absentee ballots, mailin ballots, ballots are necessarily going to be right with broad reediting attorney general has done that on television. Speculating without any evidence and ask if theres any evidence he said i dont have any evidence, their logic leading foreign nations will send thousands of fraudulent ballots while on the other hand, seeming to ignore actual election interference both in 2016 and happening again in2020 and where thats coming from. Diver view he has from the actual fbi director who is also handpicked by the president was outoffavor that these days. But when you subvert what is supposed to be a neutral rule of law process, to advance the narrative, thats a problem so you allude to this kind of odd case, pennsylvania where at one point was nine knots, another. 7 ballots and there was an investigation into whether or not there was fraud. What happened with those ballots is a little bit confusing but the bottom line is Standard Operating Procedure in the Justice Department is not to talk about investigations and reveal detailed investigations, particularly revealing details of investigations before their concluded and before some charting decision has been made by the way you dont make a charting decision you, you keep your mouth shut as jim cole he has been made to understand and what he did four years ago with clinton, nonetheless this us attorney who i dont know personally and not familiar with his reputation made public statements that he had to then revise because they were erroneous with respect to the seven out of nine ballots that presumably work out with donald trump and didnt make their way to the right place. It may seem like a small thing , but its a signal to other people in the department or other people in other places that the normal rules of keeping your mouth shut about an Ongoing Investigation 80 dont apply area and maybe its the case if i exercise my discretion in a way to put the palm on thescale a little bit , every once in a while. You see the attorney general doing it whether its the Mueller Report or voting by mail or roger stone or anything else that caused by the way the resignation of the entirecareer prosecutors from the case. Then maybe thats something i should do too. Maybe it will help me to curry favor and maybe it will cause my Career Advancement and on the flipside its worse reedit if i dont do those things, maybe im trouble red witnessed a statement made again, i keep making the point all of these are of apiece. Theyre jumping out of the election mode. Literally the only thing that i think is clearly the correct ethical pa of judge ses he was in office was to recuse himself. From the investigation and thats literally the onething that the president of the United States , this president like about Jeff Sessions and where does that lead to . That led to an attorney general bill barr broadcast at his confirmationhearing , unlike prior nominees who were confirmed to the attorney general going back sometime in the past who said they would not only see ethics advice on recusal but they would follow the ethics advice given by courier ethics people in the department. Bill barr said no, im not going to do that. So you have it coming from the white house, you havent coming from the head of the department and you start to undermine the culture when it comes to elections or anything else and what the us attorney needs to do in pennsylvania was a dramatic departure on what isnormally done. So i want to assume a little difficult because i didnt want to scare the folks at home too much but before we do that, i want to just return briefly to a topic that in a validity which is the Supreme Court. And nobody knows more about the Supreme Court and you probably. I wonder if you could talk a little bit about the implications of what were seeing now out there and the potential shift for the Supreme Court to ask as a guardian to the rule along. Its a little bit likewhat i was saying with respect to the department of justice. Its vital to the health of our republic, to our constitutional system that the American People have faith in the Supreme Court as an institution. That they believe that its an institution about law. That is not a political institution. And thats really been shaken very badly. And i think one could go back as far as michigan for to see at least half of the country. That was a watershed moment that really caused Many Americans to have doubts in the idea of the Supreme Court as an institution of law and of politics. You know, democrats, people on the left, i think they reconciled themselves with bush versus gore and got back to the point of thinking that they could have in the institution of the Supreme Court. And then you got to the Merrick Garland fiasco in 2016 there through the president obama nominated somebody in the spring, early spring of 2016 was i think as qualified as anynominee in the history of our country. Moderate, beloved judge on the dc circuit. And look what happened. Theres only one way to interpret what happened which was the republican majority in the senate wanted somebody on the court who was going to vote differently on issues they care about and they anticipated Merrick Garland would vote so they blocked it. And i thought at that time that was just going to have a devastating effect on at least half the country feeling that they could trust the Supreme Court and i do think it has had a very serious adverse effect now, just in the last few weeks but what happened. Having had a as a country go through what we went through with the garland nomination to now have Justice Ginsburg passed away. A beloved justice, have her pass away just a few weeks before the election and have an effort made by the president with the support of the Republican Leadership in the senate to try to fill that seat on the eve of the election, right in the teeth of the argument that was offered in 2016 as the reason why the garlandnomination should be considered. I mean, people should ask themselves why would you think half the country would have any faith that this is a neutral institution thats devoted to the rule of law when you see this kind of shenanigans surrounding the process of deciding who goes on the court . I think its the terrible problem and i think were going to pay a price for it for a long time. Today, do you want to jump in . Sure, i couldnt agreemore with everything that was just said. If a critical amount of the people in our country no longer see our judicial system as a potential avenue of relief especially in a system like ours that the Supreme Court ultimately determines law, we are in extraordinarily perilous times and that feeling of distrust toward that system is growing and thats why were seeing sustained protests. Many like to quote doctor king. He described riots as the language of the unheard and he was talking about the uprising in the early 1960s in watts and harlem but they leave off the in the next line is, and what is it that america has failed to hear . And protesters are saying in nouncertain terms that theres a growing faithlessness inour system of justice. And that is , thats wellfounded because of the antics that we are seeing in the antics in congress and all of what was just described in terms of how the nomination process hasbecome completely politicized. And if were honest, weve always had to force our institutions to be accountable and i think this circumstance will be no different. We will continue to see protests and iberian this if i didnt acknowledge Mary Lou Hamer and her activism on this day that celebrates her birthday. Going to need that type of agitation in order to force our institutions and our elected leaders to serve all the people but it will not be an easy task. Its one that we must submit to and no administration is absolved from that responsibility. Thank you. I think were actually running almost to the two thirds mark so i like to pit now maybe a little bit to solutions in the governor, maybe i want to get to the department of justice. But as you noted at the outset, this is not just about doj and its not just about Law Enforcement and right now, we are in a pandemic that is disproportionately affecting people of color particularly with black americans and that disproportionate impact has come in no small part from the mishandling and abuse that has gone into the Pandemic Response though many could you talk a bit a little bit about the solutions and im going to ask you a twopart question. One is to talk a little bit about some of the things we need to address then also though as you know, republican elected officials now nursing democrats talk more about these issues but they do need to be bipartisan. We hope they will be bipartisan. What is the process for getting some bipartisan agreement. On some of these efforts to shore up. Let me say i think were seeing at least come into vivid really, its taken us, its rick the bandaid off of the wound that we hadfor a long time in this country which is the disparate way communities of color have been treated. Whether its the money that they can get from the federal government, whether its there because they dont have a political voice, you have Environmental Justice issues that are rampant because companies were allowed to pollute in those areas because they didnt have a voice. This was something going on through multiple administrations and unfortunately its a real part of our history so and i in a really perverse way this might be a good time. I mean, it certainly is the time to address it. Cant hide from it anymore, you have to recognize whats happening in the importanceof these peoples lives. And their businesses. And hopefully it will mean that there will be more tender attention paid to how discriminatory weve been. Theres no other way to describe but weve been discriminated right along and thats a stain. Thats a stain on this country but i have some hope, both because this has brought , the virus is this so to the four and also because you have groups like problem solvers focus in the house and senate, bipartisan group, have to be even republicans and democrats, no republican can join on their own or democrat on their own they are responsible for a lot of Bipartisan Legislation coming forward and of course what the first two reports that we did, this task force did, many of them are embodied in these new legislations that have half the house, some have gone to the senate, some have done quite that far but they were all bipartisan and so there ishope. I think the biggest is going to be clear getting change out of the top of these administrations. Its going to be very hard to get beyond this withoutthat. And an unbridled second term for this administration scares me to death. Ive never been so afraid for our democracy as i am today because those norms, the norms weve been talking about been thrown out the window we do have these Public Servants, we have a lot of them and they do want to do the right thing and give them the tools and the kinds of things that we recommended in our reports, they have the ability to do that and you see that its hr one, at a lot of what we offered in it and it was bipartisan. And the big pieces of legislation that have really impacted the country, any of the major ones where youre talking about social security, medicare, Environmental Protection, they been bipartisan because the minute you have a totally partisan bill that relies solely on 140, the next time the otherparty gets into a position of power conduit. And people are starting to understand more. But its going to be up to the publicits going to be up to thepublic to bring pressure on their elected officials at all levels. And say we cannot continue like this. If you purport to be a christian, you have to think of what you do to the least among us to do also to me. We have to remember those values of treating people equally, how this country was founded, how the Republican Party was founded as a party to free slaves, as a major part of it. We seem to have that totally behind but i do see in particularly young people today, coming together and saying weve got to make a change. Weve got to care about Climate Change, thats something thats going to impact us for ever frankly because were not going to stop it, we canslowly but not stop it. And women, we have to understand that we are in a very perilous place like you at what we have seen in a running our basic values are, have longterm consequences that are going to be hard to really analyze you but i do see now that we are, we cant hide from the discriminatory practices of the past and we are seeing more pressure put on companies and on local and state governments and thats where the changesare really going to take place. At least initially. The federal government, first thing anybody, should be the first thing anybody taking the office this coming year 2021, to do is around a virus. That has to be job number one before you can get the economy back but for the states, that is important. There also the ones that can take the steps on the other part of this equation and start to bring the kinds of change that we want to see throughout the country and across the country. They cant ignore their constituents because they live with them every day. They get to washington and you start to forget because her in a bubble. Thats not something we can accept any more. Would you say that in terms of corralling the virus , are there things we can do to protect the integrity of government science, in particular that will help us do that faster . Absolutely. First of all, we have to stop denigrating science and pretending itdoesnt matter. We need to have a leader who says this is important, as is the number one job. We are going to rely on the experts on this scientists and its not the your science, not directed by a political end. Not something thats because you want to turn out this way, were going to torture into this and unfortunately as happened with so many of the regulations of the Environmental Protection agency and one day and say i dont think its a big deal, im going to stop, im going to take away the regulations on how much arsenic to which people can be exposed. You have to say this is the new evidence that tells me were in the wrong place for this particular regulation though when they have done all these rollbacks, when they have wanted to disregard that part of the process, when it gets to the courts even today, records are striking down the efforts to undermine thescience. And we can hope that something that is going to continue because the regulations are pretty clear. Enabling legislation is pretty clear on how to address these issues and you have to have some asus insights but is going to take a direct directive from the top that this is important, that science is valued and we need that transparency to understand that this is what the science really is saying and then let people have a look at that. Obviously interpretations are going to be different depending on your bias as you come to it that they need to see that underlying science and that has to be available broadly to the community. Class for we go to questions from our audience, maybe you can talk about him of the reforms could help us bring the department of justice back and theres a bill actually to protect our democracy was just introduced that contains some of these things that you could maybe seek to. The first thing ill say this is the whole thrust of the book i wrote after i get fired by the president , policies are important. Codifying rules are important, laws are important but people are important to and you can have the best us in the world, the best criminal code in the world but if you dont have good judges and good particular and good defense lawyers, then you dont have good public press, all those go to hell. Some of the abuses that people talk about with respect to this administration or prior administrations, in the main no law has changed area in the main, its in totality the constitution is the same. Most of the laws on the same. Most of the policies are the same but what has changed is a personnel involved in participating in all those things. And if they choose to exercise their discretion in a way that doesnt do good for the public, and eviscerates the rule of law and Public Safety and the role along and people being people in the eyes of the law, and as laura and said, no law, no court conceded. That has to come from people so as an initial pattern, i know people dont love to hear this because its an amorphous thing but the leaders in the department and leaders in the congress oversee the department have to care about those values and have to care about with the spirit of those values are and inculcate them among the entire group of people at thedepartment. There are things you can do to signal these things are important. Whether its oversight by congress and i used to work in the senate and we did vigorous oversight of the department of justice in 06 and 07 and 08 but there are other things you can do and theres another thing in here which is the protection of people who are courier and trying to do the right thing. Whether they are assigned jobs like the special counsel to try to figure out from a neutral perspective how to figure out who did what was wrong, what protections for people like that, more protection for the inspectors general. I think one of the provisions in the act would give a full cost standard to fire Inspector General that we havent had a chance to talk about but for the first time in 11 years and Inspector General was removed and there were five more, five in total by the president of the United States. On the ground basically you just lost confidence so among other things the production of special counsel, the protection of Inspector General and rankandfile people, even highranking people in the department of justice, as some of you may famously know the day before i was asked to resign the president called me directly and i was in the Southern District of new york, never been called by Barack Obamaor any president presumably to talk about something , im not sure because i never observed return the call because i observed the norm that a person like the president should not be engaged in direct conversation with the us attorney without the involvement of any other people including the attorney general when among other things my office had jurisdiction over his home, his residence, his business, his charity. No good can come of that. So you need a contact policy and for people not familiar there has been written guidance for some time and it gets revised from time to time that makes it clear people in the white house cannot talk to a very select small number of people in the Justice Department. Certainly a president or Vice President should be calling all local United States attorney and there are provisions in the bill and in our proposals from the task force that require according to congress with respect to those contacts so there can be some oversight area and those are a couple of things that are in place, the integrity of the people, not to substitutefor the integrity of the people responsible for overseeing the system. We can put those barriers in place and go for that transparency what we really have to have people who are willing to enforce it and to stand up. If i could add a quick note on that, i think we are going to be, i hope, a few months from now in a moment like the post watergate moment where congress enacted a lot of statutes that tried to respond to the corruption and lawlessness that became wellknown out of the Nixon Administration and have someone in the executive branch many years later i fought those laws like the ethics in Government Act and the privacy act because they made my life more difficult. They were frustrating but they were really important and symbolically really important because as the governor and night 100 agree the at the end of the day you active people of integrity in these positions who believe in the rule of law and believe in these norms and believe theyve got to fight for them but it also matters, i think, to us as a country both practically but symbolically when Congress Takes a stoplight connecting the laws of the postwar because these are our values and this is what matters to us as a country. I do think its important will be important for congress to do that again and hopefully will be in a position for that to happ happen. We are almost out of time before i go to the last question which is from the audience i want to take a quick moment to acknowledge the many who contributed to this event and briefly note my colleagues and our fellow martha and julia who worked tirelessly and are crack event staff in these events are timeconsuming and worked very hard i want to acknowledge them and into finish i will leave you all and hope all of you can come in and briefly comment on one question which is there has been criticism in the Current Administration during this call and we are a 5013 organization and the impetus of this project has always been those with bipartisan concerns. I would like to close out with maybe a thought of why, no matter who is president in january 2021 we need to keep these issues front and center and need to make them a priority. Im really glad we got that question because it suggests that the dysfunction and dystopia in which his country is presently involved is the fault of a single president or Single Administration is 12 credit them too much and too, to dangerously oversimplify the complex history of racial cast in this country and how deepseated the roots are. The revolution of the imagination that its okay to transform this country into something truly deserving of being called a multiracial, multiethnic democracy we have an opportunity at this moment because of the confluence of issues that are facing our country not just the frailties of this administration but also because of the shared suffering that the pandemic has imposed on all residents of this country, also because of the new illumination that protests have provided to the deepest qualities that plague our society and we have an opportunity for a third reconstruction that encompasses issues of Racial Justice, democracy and many other ways to strengthen our society through science looking at Climate Change, looking at all the ways in which we have linked destinies and so i think its important we recognize that this is beyond parties and beyond any factual is him and this is without our shared humanity and if we dont see them that way we will continue down this very dangerous path that i am rather hopeful. Often out of these moments of moments of struggle we see some of the most promising transformation in our society as we continue to advance toward really inhabiting the full potential of our democracy. I remain hopeful and i look forward to continuing this type of discussion as we had in that direction. Don, would you go next . If anything, i think it will be, if there is a new administration in 2021 i think it will be more important to focus on the norms and values weve been talking about today and the Brennan Center has done so much amazing work to promote. With the new administration there will be an honest pressure on it, first of all, i think there will be enormous pressure on it for retribution against the Old Administration and i think there will be an honest pressure on it to make fundamental changes a very fast in ways that are lawmaking system maybe cant accommodate under the constitution and that there will be a great temptation to embrace the argument, well, look at what these others did so how could you possibly say we cant take these steps ourselves when what we are doing is to make things better. They might be doing it to make it better but i do think that the problem with rules is that you cant get into it are real down roll spiral of a one side cheats the other side and they feel like its okay to cheat and then its worse and worse. I do think that kind of digital loans with respect to the administration, particularly in those early months is going to be quite important. Governor, why dont we go with you. It would be nice and easy to blame it on one administration but that is just convenient but unfortunately what this has shown us is how deep these issues go and the dysfunction that weve seen in congress over the last decade can relate the feet of both parties. We have allowed this to happen also in its not false by not participating in elections when the voter turnout is ten, 12 that isnt giving you a candidate for the fall to reflect the majority of people but gives you candidates in the fall who reflect the most partisan of their particular party and those nominations. We have to look in the mirror and have to understand that its both parties and has been the administrations over the past. Racism didnt just happen weve had this to be unfortunately a part of our history for a long time and i dont know who needs to know those who is fully basic but republican or democrats have been taking it on and address it in ways and with all the issues this has been a gradual process and maybe more highly illuminated and moving faster to coincide those norms than we are used to in a scene in the past but it is not Just One Party and not just one person. That is too convenient, too easy and it absolves also having to do much should be a menstruation change from the fall and that would be a devastating mistake. I cannot agree more with what don was saying that we have to really be careful is retribution from one side and the other. That is just, someone has to ride above that partisanship and show real leadership and show what the country is truly about and serve the country well rather than their party. And broadcasting from my home and my own home and never get the last word. Thank you. [laughter] and feeling optimistic if there is a new administration about some of these bipartisan reports for reforms. A lot of the abuses were talking about many have occurred before and i think, not to a degree is seen in last four years but theres been bad pardons before, marc rich and bill clinton and theres been nepotism before, bet, Bobby Kennedy and there have been a lot of people in this timeframe to a size and scale in a scope not seen before but it will be true, i think, if human nature is what i think it is and once this administration and republicans who are paired to keep their mouth shut because of fear attacked by the president or Something Else and not going to want future democratic president , billionaire or not, to be able to engage in these abuses that they know in their hearts and minds were in fact abuses. They will not want a future republican will not want a future democratic billionaire or reality star or whatever or future populist you might imagine perhaps demagogue to get away with having all sorts of financial entanglements or take it vantage of the emoluments or be able to hire their daughter and soninlaw and keep them in the white house without the ability to hold them accountable just because you dont pay them a salary or all sorts of National Security abuses and we will be able to fire inspectors general with no expo nation at all completely without consequence. That has been the thing that everyone will care about when the shoe is on the other foot and its an opportunity and new administration for both the democrats who i hope dont do what don worries about as well and say now its our trick and we should do whatever we want and understand like in the post nixon era is to everyones advantage to curb the things that on a bipartisan basis might be more open about this and these are a few quick things we need to fix. Inspectors general, nepotism and the pardon power giving explanation. It will not be true the republicans in the future will be fine if the democratic president starts pardoning members of his family. Its just not going to be acceptable. I think once we get on the other side of this and hopefully its naive but holy people will see the sensibility and all of this and will get something done. Thank you. On that note we are out of time. On behalf of the Brennan Center for justice i want to thank our outstanding panel for an overly wonderful conversation and think everyone for attending this discussion. Thank you all and have a wonderful day. Thank you, folks. Thank you. You are watching cspan2 your unfiltered view of government, created by americas Cable Television company as a Public Service brought to today by your television provider. This is the hall where Vice President mike pence will denigrate Kamala Harris tomorrow night in salt lake city. After President Trump was infected with the coronavirus last week the democrats have requested a plexiglas divider between the two candidates and their podiums will be 12 feet apart. Those and other changes underway in the hall today. I honestly will tell you i dont think when the dust settles in this election it will be whether america becomes republican or more democrat but whether they were more liberal or conservative or red or blue but i think the choice in this election is whether america remains america. As joe biden has said from the moment he entered this race, its about the soul of our nation, who we are, what we stand for and maybe, most importantly, who we want to be. Watch the Vice President ial debate between Vice President mike pence and senator Kamala Harris live wednesday and 9 00 p. M. Eastern from the university of utah in salt lake city. Watch the debate live on cspan, listen live on the cspan radio app and go to cspan. Org debate for live or ondemand streaming through cspans debate coverage. Theres also a link to each debate question and answer. See social media feeds on debate happenings in reaction and watch our president ial debate video from the cspan video library. Next, senior officials from the administrations of George Hw Bush to barack obama talk about president ial transition, differences between their time and now and the difficulty of shifting from Campaign Mode to governing. The partnership for Public Service hosted this three hour series of discussion. Good morning and welcome to talkin to talking transitions. My name is david and im the director of the center for president ial transition. We all look up to shog