Elliot Williams is a former senior official for the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security. He spent 15 years in the federal government, is now a legal analyst for CNN, and has a new book: "Five Bullets: The Story of Bernie Goetz, New York's Explosive '80s, and the Subway Vigilante Trial that Divided the Nation."
WAMC’s Annie Bennett spoke to Williams about the recent resignations at the Department of Justice and what this means for the future of Congress. Plus, do political campaigns still matter?
INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT
Editor’s note: This conversation has been lightly edited for clarity.
Annie Bennett: The first thing I want to talk to you about is what is going on in the DOJ. What I'm seeing is that since the midterms, obviously a big, big ‘blue wave,’ there's been this sort of mass exodus with DOJ officials. I would love if you could just break down for me what is actually going on.
Elliot Williams: Now, the non-cynical explanation is that after a couple years of being a senior political appointee - I was one - often people want to move on and do other things.
Bennett: All at the same time, though?
Williams: And all right after election day? That's the thing. And I think, what I find interesting is that you would see it after a year, maybe even after two years, early next year. It is odd that within days of Election Day, the head of The Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department, who is certainly ideologically aligned with the president, and also the head of The National Security Division, was an odd one. Those are two very senior positions to leave, but also right after Election Day.
Bennett: I'm reading all the political articles about this and everything, and nobody will say why this is happening, because it's all speculative. What actually is the reason for this?
Williams: So again, I don't know. Again, if I had to divine, it just seems that the president of the United States has made it very clear that he has goals, almost targets. This desire to see whether it's opponents of the president locked up, or locked up at a faster rate, seemed to rankle the president and senior folks at the White House so much that they felt a need to turn over a big one like the head of the Civil Rights Division. That would be my guess, just because of how forthright the president and the people around him have been about what is the purpose of the Justice Department? What is the purpose of the Civil Rights Division? What is the purpose of litigation? And I just think that's probably what we're seeing here.
Bennett: So why the timing with the election?
Williams: People come and go. I get it. However, it's just not tied to the day after, or a couple days after Election Day. And nothing exposes what I think is political decision making than the fact that they heard that a bunch of Democrats were coming in, and now it's time to go. And I think maybe it's fear of the congressional oversight that's coming their way. They will certainly face a more hostile Congress, or even a slightly hostile Congress, because they certainly had a very friendly one over the last two years. But the Election Day thing, honestly, Annie, it perplexes me as much as anybody else. I mean, let me say, nothing shocks me anymore with respect to the Trump Justice Department. It is ridiculous that within minutes of knowing that Republicans were going to lose Congress, a lot of these senior positions are heading for the hills.
Bennett: Wow! But how does impeachment play into all this? Because that seems like something that people are begging Democrats not to get caught in these, sort of, political games and to make real policy. But also, people do want accountability and anti-corruption stuff. So, how effective actually could impeachment be, both for the good of The Republic and the good of the Democratic Party in the next two years?
Williams: You know, the problem with impeachment is that number one - it actually consumes a tremendous amount of congressional resources. So, you said that the second biggest issue was corruption. The first one was affordability. And if the House of Representatives is consumed in a major impeachment trial, they are not working on affordability, and I don't want anybody to tell me, “Oh, they can walk and chew gum at the same time.” And here we get back to a cynical point. Impeachment did not work quite well politically for Democrats last time around. There was a backlash to it. Pardon me. Last times around, there was a backlash to it, and they just have to understand that not everybody is where TikTok is on this issue, and I just think it gets a little bit complicated. Now, it's interesting that there seems to be much more glee for impeaching the Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth. Maybe that's the fig leaf, if you want to call it that, or the ‘thing.’
Bennett: So, is the goal of impeaching Hegseth truly, beyond the political points or whatever, to get him out of office? Because when they impeached Trump twice, that didn't work. But could they actually get Hegseth out of his position through impeachment?
Williams: I don't know. Only because in order to impeach him, all they need is a majority of the House of Representatives.
Bennett: Done.
Williams: You then have to get two-thirds of the Senate. That's 67 senators to agree to remove him from office, and he is a singularly unpopular figure in an unpopular administration. But I don't know if he's two-thirds-of-the-Senate unpopular. I just don't know, and it'll be interesting to see - can they marshal those kinds of votes to get him out?
Bennett: They sent me out on election night to cover a local Republican candidate, and there was very little chance that this candidate was going to be successful in their campaign, just given the numbers of the district. It's a blue district. And I was talking to the campaign director afterwards, and he essentially said, "I just don't even know if there's a point in campaigning anymore. Like, I don't know if campaigns actually change anyone's mind or make any difference.” And I was thinking about it, and it seems to me that there are three sort of things. There's the swing of the pendulum that is influencing voters. “I don't like what's going on, so I'm going to vote the other way.” There's the party loyalty, and then there is the campaigning. And I guess…which of these three did you think before, and did you think after the midterms, are influencing voters?
Williams: Even in this bloodbath, if you want to call it that, for Democrats, many of these candidates were sharp, smart candidates with a coherent message tailored to their local voters. The message in Mississippi was very different from the one in Maine, for instance, and it worked.
Bennett: Yeah, and I think that's why, it seems to me, that people are so focused on this midterm result. It’s not just the fact that it was taking back control of Congress for the Democrats, but because districts that people never thought would swing swung. And I think that that sort of changes the game for how people think about politics.
Williams: And I would also say the converse of… the president of the United States, who ought to have been ‘Campaigner in Chief’ for a lot of these Senate races, and probably House races, was out in the run up to Election Day talking about reflecting pool signing, his signature on the final beam of the White House ballroom, all of these things…that is also campaigning and failing to meet the moment. And I actually think a coherent message and simple, basic high school student council president discipline out of our president of the United States could have actually stopped some of the bleeding for some of these Republicans.
Bennett: What are some ways that you think those local campaigns still can sway voters?
Williams: Right. I think it's: focus on the issues that are relevant to those voters in that area. Focus on what they care about.
