‘Authoritarian’ White House Puts DOJ Officials In Service of Political Agenda

By Sam Thielman | January 23, 2018 3:18 pm

Amid last week’s controversy over the Trump administration’s misleading report on terrorism and immigration, some Department of Justice (DOJ) veterans were deeply troubled by something else: A Justice Department lawyer was once again briefing reporters from behind the podium in the White House press briefing room.

The appearance by Ed O’Callaghan, a principal deputy assistant attorney general for national security, and a former member of the Trump transition team, was at least the third time under the Trump administration that a relatively obscure DOJ political appointee has briefed reporters from the White House podium on an issue touching on illegal immigration, perhaps the hottest-button political topic of our time.

During the Obama and George W. Bush administrations, no Justice Department official aside from the attorney general briefed reporters from the White House podium, according to a search of a database of White House press briefings maintained by the University of California, Santa Barbara. The three times an attorney general did appear before press from the White House were on 9/11/2001 and twice more in the six weeks following.

Former Justice Department officials say those appearances at the White House are so rare because past administrations have rightly been wary of being seen to put Justice Department staff — as opposed to the attorney general him or herself, who is more clearly associated with the administration — in the service of the president’s political agenda.

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