The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ)'s Office of the Inspector General (OIG) has released its annual report identifying the top management and performance challenges currently facing the federal agency.
Among the OIG's findings, a lack of public trust in the DOJ remains a "longstanding" problem, Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz announced Monday, and strengthening such trust poses "a significant challenge."
However, in its 59-page report highlighting incidents that have contributed to the department's confidence crisis, the DOJ watchdog largely overlooked transgressions under the Biden-Harris administration, which still reigns. Instead, the OIG looked farther back to Trump's time in office, his first term, as we head into the president-elect's second.
Today we released the 2024 Top Management and Performance Challenges Facing the DOJ. The challenges are identified based on our oversight work and are meant to help the DOJ improve its operations.
— DOJ Inspector General (@JusticeOIG) November 25, 2024
Learn more about this report and explore the challenges: https://t.co/HoENPob5Em pic.twitter.com/eHiiZxOWbC
Based on the OIG's oversight work, the inspector general's office blames a medley of Trump-era episodes as reasons why public trust in the institution has eroded over time.
First, the OIG report points to public statements that former federal prosecutor David Freed, a Trump-nominated U.S. attorney, made about an ongoing criminal probe into alleged ballot tampering during the 2020 presidential election.
Freed had said several mail-in military ballots, mostly cast for Donald Trump, were discarded (tossed into the trash) at a Pennsylvania election office in pro-Trump Luzerne County.
Ultimately, the OIG concluded that Freed's comments "unnecessarily inserted partisanship into the investigation" and "created a false impression" that the incident was "much more serious than DOJ leadership knew it to be."
The report also calls attention to another OIG inquiry into claims that senior DOJ appointees placed "political pressure" on the trial team prosecuting Roger Stone, a close confidant of Trump, so that they lowered their sentencing recommendations.
While the OIG did not find evidence that the prosecution's revision was the result of "improper political considerations," the report chastises the "unusual substantive involvement," though not prohibited by law or policy, of then-Attorney General Bill Barr and other high-level DOJ officials in the second sentencing recommendation's preparation and filing.
Their embroilment in the case against the president's political ally "affected the public's perception of the Department's integrity, independence, and objectivity," the OIG says.
The report then cites an old OIG review blasting the DOJ's response to the George Floyd riots in Washington, D.C., specifically the clearing of Lafayette Park when Trump walked through shortly afterward to visit St. John's Church, which was set ablaze the night before, on June 1, 2020. Joined by Barr and other DOJ officials, Trump posed for a photograph in front of the church while holding up a Bible and promising to uphold the rule of law.
"In doing so, Department leaders placed the safety of the Department's personnel and members of the public at risk, thereby jeopardizing the public's perception and confidence in the Department," the OIG report says.
This despite the fact that a separate U.S. Department of the Interior inspector general's report debunked the false narrative that federal authorities had forcibly cleared peaceful Black Lives Matter protestors to make way for Trump's photo-op.
The bombshell Interior Department report, vindicating Trump, determined that U.S. Park Police were given permission to carry out the park's clearing long before anyone knew Trump was walking over.
In fact, the operational plan in place allowed for the safe installation of anti-scale fencing to ward off property destruction and injury to officers that occurred days prior.
Of course, the OIG report makes no mention of the now-failed federal prosecutions of President-elect Donald Trump or the discriminatory use of the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act overwhelmingly against pro-life defendants for peacefully protesting at abortion clinics.
Although the report did mention the sprawling January 6 cases, in which over 1,424 defendants were federally charged following the event and hundreds ultimately convicted, the subject was categorized under combatting the threat of "Domestic Terrorism and Domestic Violence Extremism."
"The riot at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, serves as an indication that the charged political climate magnifies the domestic terrorism threat," the OIG report says.
However, the report acknowledges that the OIG is reviewing the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)'s direction and handling of its confidential human sources (CHS) in the lead-up to and on January 6, 2021, as well as whether the agency exploited its CHSs to obtain incriminating information. "Implementing the remaining recommendations from the OIG and the U.S. Government Accountability Office reports would ensure the Department is better coordinated and able to meet the DVE [domestic violence extremism] threat while at the same time safeguarding civil liberties."
To ensure that the agency is free from political influence, DOJ officials ought to strictly adhere to policies and procedures designed to protect the department from accusations of political influence or politically motivated application of the law, the OIG report recommends. Political appointees should "exercise discretion and judgment when considering whether to personally involve themselves in DOJ criminal prosecutions."
Under the Biden-Harris White House, public trust in the federal government has hovered near record lows. According to Pew Research, in June 2023, fewer than two-in-10 Americans said they trust the government in Washington to do what is right "just about always" (1 percent) or "most of the time" (15 percent). Those figures were among the lowest trust measures in nearly seven decades of polling.