The following is the transcript of an interview with Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland that aired on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan” on Feb. 16, 2025.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Last week, seven federal prosecutors resigned in objection after the Justice Department directed them to drop the investigation into New York City Mayor Eric Adams, who is facing charges including bribery and conspiracy. In her resignation letter, Danielle Sassoon, the acting U.S. Attorney overseeing the case, said a dismissal amounted to a quid pro quo, and that the DOJ, quote, “proposes dismissing the charges against Adams in return for his assistance in enforcing the federal immigration laws.” In response, then-acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove threatened her with an investigation into her conduct. Joining us now is Maryland Democrat Jamie Raskin. He is the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee. This episode is highly unusual. Is there anything that you in your role can do about this episode and what’s happening inside Attorney General Bondi’s Justice Department?
REP. JAMIE RASKIN: Well, the Justice Department is at war with its own attorneys, its own prosecutors, and the whole episode is just saturated with corruption. It was a corrupt- corruption prosecution and investigation which led to a grand jury indictment against Eric Adams for bribery, conspiracy, other corruption charges, and then the new Department of Justice decided to squash the whole thing, basically saying to Adams, well, we will drop this case against you if you engage in certain kinds of political or policy accommodations with us. And then, in order to complete that deeply corrupt bargain, they had to try to coerce their own lawyers to do it. But of course, the prosecutors were saying nothing has changed in the facts of the case, and nothing has changed in the law. In fact, additional evidence was found, meaning that they were going to revise and expand the original indictment, but instead they were told to kill it for political reasons. And so, you know, this is an outrageous violation of the rules of prosecutors and an offense against due process and a very dangerous first move for the Department of Justice to be making under the Trump people.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Mayor Adams, of course, claims there was no quid pro quo and that none of this was wrong. But, there was the lead prosecutor as well on this case who resigned in objection to what’s happening. But, it’s moving forward here. This is all now in the hands of a judge. Does he have leeway to prosecute?
REP. RASKIN: So- first of all, just about Danielle Sassoon, I mean, that’s a very conservative U.S. attorney, and she couldn’t take it. I mean, you have the most conservative prosecutors in the country resigning in opposition to this steamroller on behalf of corruption. But it’s not over yet, because Judge Dale Ho does not have to accept the withdrawal of the charges, the dismissal of the charges, which seven Department of Justice attorneys resigned rather than be involved in. The head of the Public In- Integrity section, the head of the Criminal Division, five other lawyers said, no way, and they wrote very stinging rebukes of the Attorney General and the Department of Justice in this case. So Judge Ho has to accept this dismissal, but he may not. He may go ahead and try to appoint another prosecutor to go ahead and go through with the indictment that was handed down by grand jury.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, Attorney General Bondi says there’s nothing wrong here, saying it was President Biden’s weaponized DOJ that went after Adams for political reasons, and only after he criticized President Biden’s immigration policies. This is a fellow Democrat. Do you think he should be prosecuted? And how do you respond to that allegation?
REP. RASKIN: Well, first of all the Attorney General did not cite any changes in the facts of the case. She did not cite any changes in the law, because neither occurred, nor did she cite any irregularities in the investigation or the prosecution–
MARGARET BRENNAN: –You’re saying it’s all made up?
REP. RASKIN: Well, then she’s mimicking her boss, then, who just lies as a matter of course, one would expect more from the Attorney General of the United States. And- you know, this whole corruption attack- that is an attack on the Department of Justice for engaging in corruption prosecutions, could be impeachable in a different political environment, but the fact that Mayor Adams is a Democrat is neither here nor there, for me. I’m against corruption across the board. It seems like Donald Trump wants to attract all of the corrupt politicians in America to his side.
MARGARET BRENNAN: So in the Oval Office, President Trump- you may have seen this image, he has hung a picture, a framed picture, of the front page of the “New York Post” that has his mug shot in it from that criminal case in New York. Yesterday, he also tweeted “He who saves his country does not violate any law.” He seems to believe that all those prosecutions against him were politically motivated, and voters apparently didn’t think it mattered. He was elected with a mandate. How do you convince the public that it does matter?
REP. RASKIN: The- the dominant objective of this administration is corruption and lawlessness. The first thing that they did was they sacked 17 inspectors general. Those are the people who are actual corruption fighters within the departments and the agencies. These are the people who ferreted out $91 billion worth of waste, fraud and abuse in the government.
MARGARET BRENNAN: They argue it’s within their political power to do so.
REP. RASKIN: Oh it- there’s no doubt it is, but they sacked them- actually, it’s not within their political power to do so in a lawless way. They have to notify Congress first, 30 days in advance, and they have to set forth the specific reasons for why an Inspector General is being fired. They never did that. And the reason, of course, is because they want to pursue agendas of corruption across the board. They’re saying they’re not going to enforce the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. They are shutting down the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which has saved American consumers $31 million in bank overdraft charges, credit card late fees from corporations completely inflated and having nothing to do with actual charges and so on. They’re getting rid of anything in the government that supports consumers, that supports citizens, against the rip off artists who are their friends.
MARGARET BRENNAN: And there’s little Democrats can do to push back because you don’t have any political power.
REP. RASKIN: Well, we’re winning in court. More than a dozen federal injunctions and temporary restraining orders have been issued against everything from their illegal seizure of computer data and every American’s private data at the Treasury Department, to their illegal attempt to ban birthright citizenship in America, we’re winning across the board. We are a country–
MARGARET BRENNAN: We will watch–
REP. RASKIN: –based on law.
MARGARET BRENNAN: –what happens in those court decisions. Thank you, Congressman Raskin, we’ll be right back.
REP. RASKIN: You bet.
