WATCH: Sen. Schiff Criticizes Trump DOJ for Pursuing Baseless Cases with “No Evidence” on MS NOW

Washington, D.C. - U.S. Senator Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) joined MS NOW's The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell to condemn the politicization of the Justice Department under President Trump amid its continued attempts to prosecute Trump's enemies.

Schiff called out the appointment of Joseph diGenova, who participated in Trump's failed legal effort to overturn the 2020 election results, as an ineffective and partisan move that demonstrates the seriousness of the effort.

Additionally, Schiff denounced acting Attorney General Todd Blanche for claiming in a recent interview that Americans "should be happy" about Trump's influence over the Department of Justice, despite post-Watergate efforts to prioritize judicial independence.

View the full interview here.

Key Excerpts:

On the appointment of Joseph diGenova to advise an investigation into Trump's enemies:

[…] So now they bring in this lawyer, Joe diGenova, who was a U.S. Attorney back when Reagan was president, another one of the Trump criminal defense lawyers, an election denier lawyer. So, they're bringing him in to work with the other criminal defense lawyer, Todd Blanche, to try to further some conspiracy theory. One day, they're set to interview witnesses about it. The next day, no, they're going to bring it before the grand jury. The next day, no, they're going to interview them instead of bringing before the grand jury. It's chaos, and this is the problem with trying to bring a case when there really isn't the evidence to support it. No matter how hard you try, no matter who you bring in, you run into a very basic problem, and that is, you can't bring a case with no evidence, and you certainly can't be successful with it, even if you do. And I don't expect that Joseph diGenova is going to change any of that.

On acting Attorney General Todd Blanche:

[…] The interview he gave recently where he said the American people should be happy that the president is directing the department to go after his enemies, that he has a right and a duty to do that, no self-respecting prosecutor would ever suggest such a thing. Certainly not after Watergate, when we really tried to build a wall between the White House and the Justice Department because of abuses that, frankly, were minor compared to what this president is doing. And it just another illustration this terrible decline of Todd Blanche from a respected Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Southern District of New York who, if he were watching himself today, would be appalled.

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