'Serious Misconduct' By Pam Bondi Led To Dismissal Of Case Against NYC Mayor Eric Adams: Adam Schiff

2 days ago

At today's Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA) slammed the dismissal of the case against NYC Mayor Eric Adams.

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Transcript

00:00Thank you. I want to take a moment to acknowledge what took place today in the

00:05Southern District of New York when the Justice Department dismissed a

00:10corruption case against the mayor of New York City, not because of a lack of

00:14evidence, not because of any misconduct by the prosecutors in the case, but

00:20because of the most serious misconduct of the Attorney General and the top

00:24leadership of the Justice Department. Because the Justice Department wanted to

00:29leverage that case against the mayor by dismissing the case without prejudice so

00:35that they could use him as a political pawn to help effectuate their immigration

00:40policy. That just happened today. It is one of any number of serious abuses of

00:49the rule of law by this Justice Department. Instead of having a single

00:54hearing on what the department is doing, or a single hearing on all the other

00:59plainly unlawful acts of this administration, no, instead of having

01:04hearing on any of those things, Republicans are having a hearing on the

01:09one tool that can be used to try to mitigate the harm of these illegal

01:14actions. Now, I completely concur that whether nationwide injunctions are a

01:22good thing or a bad thing has depended entirely on who they're being used

01:26against. I count no less than 26 of my Republican colleagues who were vigorously

01:32supportive of a nationwide injunction against the use of Miffa Pristone. No

01:40problem supporting a nationwide injunction in that case. And, of course, on

01:43the Democratic side of the aisle, we are applauding injunctions against the

01:48unlawful actions of this administration. Where I think I come down at this moment

01:58in time gets to your point, Professor Vladek, and that is the use of nationwide

02:04injunctions against the administration that has proven so breathtaking in its

02:10lawlessness and has engaged in such a surge of illegal actions. The effort

02:20to do away with this singularly vital tool, I think you called it, at this time

02:26would be disastrous for the country. It doesn't mean there's not going to come a

02:30time when we should agree on a bipartisan basis to place limits on this

02:35capability. I think we should, in particular on the abuse of form shopping,

02:40on picking judges solely on the basis of their political predilection or who

02:46appointed them for the purpose of a nationwide injunction. But this is not

02:51the moment to do it. This is the moment, frankly, we should be focusing on the

02:55illegality, not on the tool to constrain it. That doesn't mean we're powerless to

03:02work on legislation on this, and I think many of us have concurred with the

03:07idea of legislation that takes effect after this term, when we don't know who

03:13the next president is. Senator Cruz, you and I went to the same law school. There

03:18was a wonderful professor at the college named John Rawls who wrote a book you

03:22probably read about the veil of ignorance, where you cast a veil of

03:27ignorance over society and society would develop rules to govern that

03:32society not knowing their attributes, their race, their religion, their gender,

03:36none of that. Well, far be it for me to advocate a further veil of ignorance

03:41over this body. We are ignorant enough, but perhaps the ignorance of not knowing

03:47who the next president is is useful here. We should come up with a sensible reform

03:53of injunctions and form-shopping, but there's no way this is going to have

03:58bipartisan support unless we defer it, its application, until after this

04:02administration, when we don't know which way it will cut. I think the same is

04:06probably true about filling judicial vacancies. We have just come to this

04:10broken place where probably the only way to get things done of this significance

04:14is to postpone their application until we don't know who the president will be.

04:23My time is almost up, but Professor Vladek, in the moments I have left, I

04:29would yield to you for any kind of response. Well, just that, I mean, Senator, I

04:33think it's revealing that, you know, I as the minority witness today am not

04:39here defending in all contexts universal injunctions. I've written before that I

04:43think that there are too many of them. I've written before that they raised at

04:47least some of the prudential concerns that Professor Bray has raised, and I

04:52just want to endorse your suggestion that holistic reform to make litigation

04:56against the government less manipulable is something we should all be able to

05:00support, but that that holistic reform has to be about more than just closing

05:04off this one Avenue today, when there have been other developments that have

05:08closed off the other avenues historically that have made Senator

05:11Hawley's examples become so much more relevant today. Thank you, Mr. Vladek.

05:15Senator Schmitt. Thank you, Madam Chair. It occurs to me that

'Serious Misconduct' By Pam Bondi Led To Dismissal Of Case Against NYC Mayor Eric Adams: Adam Schiff

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