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It is time we remove the DOJ from under the Executive Branch of government

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independentusa

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After seeing the last few presidents use the DOJ for their own political purposes, I think it is time to make the DOJ into a seperate entity ourside of the Executive Brnch. The DOJ is not under the executive Branch by the constitution, but by laws passed long after the constitution was written. So we could do so and make it under the judicial branch of government where it would be less likely to be used and misused by presidents.
 
independentusa said:
After seeing the last few presidents use the DOJ for their own political purposes, I think it is time to make the DOJ into a seperate entity ourside of the Executive Brnch. The DOJ is not under the executive Branch by the constitution, but by laws passed long after the constitution was written. So we could do so and make it under the judicial branch of government where it would be less likely to be used and misused by presidents.
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Absolutely no.
 
Excon said:
Absolutely no.
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Exactly. Every Banana Republic in the world uses the Justice Department to attack the leader's political enemies. Why should the USA be any different?
 
independentusa said:
After seeing the last few presidents use the DOJ for their own political purposes, I think it is time to make the DOJ into a seperate entity ourside of the Executive Brnch. The DOJ is not under the executive Branch by the constitution, but by laws passed long after the constitution was written. So we could do so and make it under the judicial branch of government where it would be less likely to be used and misused by presidents.
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What could possibly go wrong with the police and prosecution being run by appointed (for life?) folks?
 
independentusa said:
After seeing the last few presidents use the DOJ for their own political purposes, I think it is time to make the DOJ into a seperate entity ourside of the Executive Brnch. The DOJ is not under the executive Branch by the constitution, but by laws passed long after the constitution was written. So we could do so and make it under the judicial branch of government where it would be less likely to be used and misused by presidents.
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Where are you going to put it?
 
ttwtt78640 said:
What could possibly go wrong with the police and prosecution being run by appointed (for life?) folks?
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That is speculation. What's fact is that it's currently being run in the same way a Banana Republic leader would run it.
 
ttwtt78640 said:
What could possibly go wrong with the police and prosecution being run by appointed (for life?) folks?
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Yea what could possibly wrong. Oiy Vey.
 
JustHanging said:
That is speculation. What's fact is that it's currently being run in the same way a Banana Republic leader would run it.
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Who is elected within the federal judicial branch? What is a fact is that some get prison time for lying to the FBI or under oath and others do not. There is certainly a lot wrong with the DOJ, but eliminating its control by elected officials does not appear to fix any of that.
 
This is one tricky area. On the one hand, in theory the law enforcement has the power to override the will of the people and bring down the elected officials. That power has to be constrained from abuse. On the other hand, that and impeachment are the two main checks on an out of control executive and tyranny, we need to be able to effectively investigate and constrain abuse of power.

We have no easy answer. The corrupt Senate and the sham trial show how impeachment isn't working. We've tried various 'special investigator' processes; Nixon fired Cox, Republicans abused the process on Clinton, Reagan obstructed the Iran-Contra investigation. Congress abandoned the position, which is why Congress had to investigate trump who blocked them at totally as he could.

We had established 'norms', where the president was expected to avoid 'the appearance of impropriety' and be very hands-off, despite the fact that he appointed the Attorney General. That sort of worked for decades.

And then trump has trashed all those 'norms', showing how 'norms' didn't fix a broken president who doesn't care about them. This is a real challenge.
 
There seems to be a good case for giving the DOJ congressional oversight
 
ttwtt78640 said:
What could possibly go wrong with the police and prosecution being run by appointed (for life?) folks?
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I am way ahead of you. The uniforms are already planned out.

Dredd-Movie-Spinoff-Dark-Judges-Miniseries.jpg
 
independentusa said:
After seeing the last few presidents use the DOJ for their own political purposes, I think it is time to make the DOJ into a seperate entity ourside of the Executive Brnch. The DOJ is not under the executive Branch by the constitution, but by laws passed long after the constitution was written. So we could do so and make it under the judicial branch of government where it would be less likely to be used and misused by presidents.
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The Constitution is clear.

The Executive power is given exclusively to the President under Article II.

Legislative power to Congress under Article I.

Judicial power to the SCOTUS under Article III.

That means all government agencies and civil departments belong to the Executive branch. It's role includes law enforcement.

Congress creates the agencies and can include oversight rights. It's role is to create law; but administrative authority rests with the President.

SCOTUS supervises the Courts, setting rules of procedure, and interpreting law. The role is neutral arbiter of the law. Allowing them to control the Justice Dept. would then also give them control of law enforcement. That would affect judicial "neutrality."
 
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independentusa said:
After seeing the last few presidents use the DOJ for their own political purposes, I think it is time to make the DOJ into a seperate entity ourside of the Executive Brnch. The DOJ is not under the executive Branch by the constitution, but by laws passed long after the constitution was written. So we could do so and make it under the judicial branch of government where it would be less likely to be used and misused by presidents.
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It would need to be an independent agency and not under the SCOTUS.
 
We should all remember that DOJ is yet another result of this country's original sin, Slavery. That is just a fact and it should be a sobering one.
 
ttwtt78640 said:
Yep, if we only had a government run by folks appointed for life then things would surely get better. ;)
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That was Madison's rationale for an appointed for life judiciary. Alas, a nice theory that failed in real life, at least for the most part.
 
When you have judges being appointed because they appear sympathetic to the incumbent and his agenda, you're looking at a judiciary wide open to accusations of bias-and quite rightly so.
That can never be a fair and impartial system. Judges in Britain are appointed on open competition. No politics involved, just as it should be.
 
Thoreau72 said:
That was Madison's rationale for an appointed for life judiciary. Alas, a nice theory that failed in real life, at least for the most part.
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The initial judiciary was to settle disputes among the states and to try a handful of federal crimes, it was not set up to enforce prohibition or to investigate the finances of individuals or businesses. The initial idea was that the federal government had very few and specific limited powers with all else left up to the states. Before 1870 the DOJ did not exist. I'm not saying that it should not exist, simply that we should not have so many federal laws to pretend to enforce that it must pick and choose which to actually enforce.

The basic problem is that the federal government is continually giving itself more powers with little or no regard for constitutional amendment. That is largely the fault of the judiciary for allowing anything deemed "important" by congress to become a new federal power using the "logic" that the stated federal powers of taxation, commerce (spending) and/or promoting the general welfare should allow that to happen. That has now evolved to the point where people can now be federally fined/taxed based on what private goods/services that they did not elect to buy.
 
ttwtt78640 said:
The initial judiciary was to settle disputes among the states and to try a handful of federal crimes, it was not set up to enforce prohibition or to investigate the finances of individuals or businesses. The initial idea was that the federal government had very few and specific limited powers with all else left up to the states. Before 1870 the DOJ did not exist. I'm not saying that it should not exist, simply that we should not have so many federal laws to pretend to enforce that it must pick and choose which to actually enforce.

The basic problem is that the federal government is continually giving itself more powers with little or no regard for constitutional amendment. That is largely the fault of the judiciary for allowing anything deemed "important" by congress to become a new federal power using the "logic" that the stated federal powers of taxation, commerce (spending) and/or promoting the general welfare should allow that to happen. That has now evolved to the point where people can now be federally fined/taxed based on what private goods/services that they did not elect to buy.
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SCOTUS really screwed up with Citizens United. A huge black eye that should be corrected quickly.
 
independentusa said:
After seeing the last few presidents use the DOJ for their own political purposes, I think it is time to make the DOJ into a seperate entity ourside of the Executive Brnch. The DOJ is not under the executive Branch by the constitution, but by laws passed long after the constitution was written. So we could do so and make it under the judicial branch of government where it would be less likely to be used and misused by presidents.
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Interesting, that proposal was made by a bunch of Republicans during Obama with Holder as AG. Now with Trump and Barr, we've got it coming from the other side.

It does seem over the last decade or two, the DOJ has become more political in nature. But whoever heads the DOJ would still be a political appointment. I like the idea, but I would want all political appointments to the DOJ be required to gain the approval of 2/3rds of the senate. That way it's not only one party appointing any political hack to AG, FBI, etc. by using the nuclear option, but whoever heads up these agencies under the DOJ would have to get support from both parties. More or less a non-political figure hopefully steeped in law enforcement.

The president can still nominate, choose a candidate, nominee, but would have to choose someone that both parties would agree on.
 
Thoreau72 said:
SCOTUS really screwed up with Citizens United. A huge black eye that should be corrected quickly.
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Hmm... is that based on the clear power of the federal government to regulate (ban?) political (as defined by itself?) speech 90 days prior to a an election for federal office? Where, exactly, is that federal power granted by the constitution? Obviously the news media (which are simply private corporations) is chock full of both pro and con commentary (cleverly called "news analysis") about candidates, yet they were not banned from doing so 90 days prior to an election by that federal regulation.
 
ttwtt78640 said:
Hmm... is that based on the clear power of the federal government to regulate (ban?) political (as defined by itself?) speech 90 days prior to a an election for federal office? Where, exactly, is that federal power granted by the constitution? Obviously the news media (which are simply private corporations) is chock full of both pro and con commentary (cleverly called "news analysis") about candidates, yet they were not banned from doing so 90 days prior to an election by that federal regulation.
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You raise a good point regarding an absence of a federal power to regulate speech, but I think the larger point is that CU ended 100 years of precedent that seems to have served a very good purpose.

So my question is did the judges not consider the potential of their decision before they made it? Could they not realize that their pending decision would wreak the havoc that it has? Are they oblivious to how corrupting $ can be in what is described as a democratic system? They cannot be that stupid, and so their decision comes to suggest that they are paid off.

The spirit of the law gives life, the letter gives death, according to St. Paul.

Their decision has enabled widespread corruption and cynicism. It gives the appearance that the judiciary is as rotten as the other 2 branches.
 
Thoreau72 said:
You raise a good point regarding an absence of a federal power to regulate speech, but I think the larger point is that CU ended 100 years of precedent that seems to have served a very good purpose.

So my question is did the judges not consider the potential of their decision before they made it? Could they not realize that their pending decision would wreak the havoc that it has? Are they oblivious to how corrupting $ can be in what is described as a democratic system? They cannot be that stupid, and so their decision comes to suggest that they are paid off.

The spirit of the law gives life, the letter gives death, according to St. Paul.

Their decision has enabled widespread corruption and cynicism. It gives the appearance that the judiciary is as rotten as the other 2 branches.
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While you agree that the federal government has no power to control (aka limit) political speech (during certain time periods of their choosing), you failed to address why that federal control (aka limit) did not apply equally to "news" media corporations. That was such an obvious lack of equal protection (application?) of the law as to make it impossible for the SCOTUS to decide any other way. The idea that MSBNC, CNN or Fox News can spew political commentary (news analysis?) freely, yet no other group or corporation may do so is both moronic as well as clearly unconstitutional.
 
independentusa;[URL="tel:1071353720" said:
1071353720[/URL]]After seeing the last few presidents use the DOJ for their own political purposes, I think it is time to make the DOJ into a seperate entity ourside of the Executive Brnch. The DOJ is not under the executive Branch by the constitution, but by laws passed long after the constitution was written. So we could do so and make it under the judicial branch of government where it would be less likely to be used and misused by presidents.
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You’re forgetting that the judiciary has already been politicized under McConnell and trump.
 
ttwtt78640 said:
While you agree that the federal government has no power to control (aka limit) political speech (during certain time periods of their choosing), you failed to address why that federal control (aka limit) did not apply equally to "news" media corporations. That was such an obvious lack of equal protection (application?) of the law as to make it impossible for the SCOTUS to decide any other way. The idea that MSBNC, CNN or Fox News can spew political commentary (news analysis?) freely, yet no other group or corporation may do so is both moronic as well as clearly unconstitutional.
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You raise very good points. The other issue at play in CU was that of personhood for corporations.

CU was a bad decision for the results it has brought. It appears the court did not ponder the potential results of its decision.
 
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