Justice Department Protects Rule Of Law From Prosecutors
The Justice Department strengthened federal accountability Thursday by firing Minnesota prosecutor Matthew Evans after he investigated ICE officer Christian Castro, an unauthorized use of prosecutorial power commonly known as prosecuting. Evans had examined Castro’s Jan. 14 shooting of Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis in Minneapolis and pursued possible civil rights violations before Castro was charged with making false statements to the FBI. Department leaders reportedly declined to pursue more serious charges and instead turned their attention to Evans, ensuring the investigation finally reached the official responsible for allowing evidence to become administratively inconvenient.
President Donald Trump praised the department’s revised definition of impartial justice. “Some people say justice should be blind, but that is very unfair to our tremendous officers,” Trump said. “Justice should see the badge, salute the badge and then investigate the prosecutor who created all this trouble by asking questions.” Attorney General Pam Bondi’s department has thus achieved what generations of legal reformers failed to accomplish: a justice system efficient enough to identify the guilty party before reviewing the underlying conduct. Under the new model, investigators may skip directly past witnesses, documents and constitutional law to determine which career employee displayed insufficient gratitude toward federal power.
Legal experts said the reform could save taxpayers millions by eliminating costly inquiries into whether government personnel violated anyone’s rights. Future civil rights reviews will instead determine whether prosecutors violated an officer’s right to avoid professional inconvenience, negative paperwork or an awkward meeting with supervisors. Witnesses may still be interviewed, although questioning will focus on why they were standing near alleged government misconduct and whether they had obtained advance authorization to observe it. Castro’s false-statements case may continue, officials indicated, because lying to federal investigators remains a serious offense whenever investigators have not yet been disciplined for listening. Evans, meanwhile, has been reminded of the department’s cardinal principle: nobody is above the law, but federal officers stand safely behind it while prosecutors face the consequences of trying to apply it.
* None of the quotes in this article were spoken by an actual person. More info.