We talked live this afternoon with Carol Leonnig and Aaron C. Davis, the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists who are the co-authors of our January Book Club selection, Injustice: How Politics and Fear Vanquished America’s Justice Department. As we wrap up our reading of the book, we talked about what’s going on on the streets of Minneapolis and in the courts, how the dismantling of the rule of law under Donald Trump’s first administration led us to ICE’s campaign of impunity, and how courts, U.S. Attorney’s offices, and state attorneys generals are still working to uphold the rule of law. Leonnig and Davis also talked to us about:
How Donald Trump exploited the fact that a nation of laws requires honest people to uphold and enforce those laws
The importance of eyewitness video in understanding events in real time
How Minnesota District Court Judge Patrick J. Schiltz — a George W. Bush appointee — became a standard-bearer for the rule of law
Why even some Republicans who’ve gone along with Trump’s dismantling of the rule of law are now saying that they’ve had enough
What Democrats can do to reestablish the rule of law — if they win Congress in the midterms
And how what’s gone so wrong in Minneapolis and elsewhere has nothing to do with cameras or training, but with how people in DHS, DOJ, FBI, and other agencies have been directed to ignore their longstanding policies, and the law itself
You won’t want to miss any of it. Just click on the video player above to watch the entire conversation.
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