Congress plans to ask President Trump to “reactivate” the office of special prosecutor so he can keep his promise to “drain the swamp,” California Rep. Darrell Issa said Friday morning on Fox News.
Issa also predicted that Trump will reestablish the independence of the Department of Justice after President Barack Obama “clearly interfered” with the Hillary Clinton email investigation and other investigations.
In two separate appearances on Fox News, Issa was asked about Trump’s recent comments in which he backed away from his campaign promise to see that Hillary Clinton goes to jail for her crimes. The former House Oversight and Government Reform Committee chairman defended Trump’s remarks and made clear in both interviews that the door has not been closed to any potential prosecutions of Hillary Clinton or her many enablers.
“I think the president-elect is in a good position to create a balance between the last administration that clearly interfered—made statements about guilt or innocence—versus the compassionate statements that the president-elect made,” Issa told Fox News anchor Heather Childers on America’s Newsroom.
https://youtu.be/mUj1lmRomiA
Issa told Childers that he thought Trump was merely saying it’s time for “the office of the president move on” and deal with bigger issues like foreign policy and national defense.
“We will be asking the president to reactivate some form of meaningful special prosecutor so that the next time a cabinet member or somebody directly involved in the government is accused of doing wrong you won’t have the inherent conflict of interest of the Justice Department being asked to investigate the Justice Department,” the California congressman said, adding that “there are going to be legislative discussions with the new president in order to help him keep his promise of draining the swamp.”
https://youtu.be/dU-lJcmDT6s
In another interview with Ed Henry last night Issa said, “I think it’s important that the president … get out of the business of prosecuting. But at the same time, he’s appointed, or proposed appointing an attorney general who has a long record of doing his job. And so when we look at Jeff Sessions, in concert with FBI and other organizations, they need to do their job.”
He continued, “and I think that’s where the balance of this next president is going to come, is in reestablishing the independence of the Department of Justice. If he doesn’t do it, Congress certainly will push for that.”
“He hasn’t said she’s innocent,” Issa added. “That’s a decision that needs to be made by the professionals.”
“Unlike President Obama, who said there isn’t a smidgen of evidence and who was constantly trying to essentially jury tamper, it’s important that this president stay out of it. This new Department of Justice is not going to have a bias from the top that this last one did,” he said.
Issa is currently holding onto a razor-thin lead in his reelection bid in California. With over 100,000 mail-in and provisional ballots still to be counted, Orange and San Diego counties show that Issa is currently ahead by 3,003 votes over his Democratic challenger, retired Marine Col. Doug Applegate.
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