The Situation: Real Housewives of the Justice Department

[CousinIT]

https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/the-situation--real-housewives-of-the-justice-department

. . .

First, who could have possibly seen this coming?

Who could have imagined that if one put at the helm of the FBI a conspiracy theorist author of childrens’ books—one whose qualifications sage members of the Senate Judiciary Committee like the suddenly-venerated Sen. Thom Tillis fiercely defend—to run the nation’s premier law enforcement agency; if we gave such person a deputy who yelled conspiracy theories into a microphone for a living and had never even worked at the FBI before; and if we made both of these men answer to a woman who could not bring herself to say that Donald Trump had lost the 2020 election or even acknowledge the possibility of having to say no to him, that they might not all get along and might entangle themselves in a fratricidal fracas over mindless conspiracy theories?

Who would have thought that members of this team might find themselves refusing to speak to colleagues, leaving the office in a huff, and then just going AWOL such that the president of these United States isn’t quite sure whether he has a deputy FBI director the following Monday?

The deputy FBI directorship, just to be clear, is not a part-time job—the sort of job one just walks away from in an unscheduled manner because, say, one is having drama with the attorney general. It’s one of the true workhorse jobs of the federal government—responsible for the day-to-day management of an organization that does the line work on countless high-stakes investigations around the country.

Who could have imagined that a fellow like Bongino, who had regular temper tantrums on his show, might just, well, have a tantrum and then up and leave? And who would have thought that folks like Patel and Bondi—stolid law enforcement professionals that they are—would spend their days trading whispers about their feud over Epstein with right-wing media figures, rather than putting their heads down and running the law enforcement apparatus they’ve been charged with setting against the president’s enemies?

The entire thing is appropriately snarky and worth a read: https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/the-situation--real-housewives-of-the-justice-department