Neal Katyal: ‘These Are Frankly Thugs Who Are Running the Justice Department Right Now’

Former Acting Solicitor General Neal Katyal said on MSNBC Friday that the Justice Department is being run by “thugs,” in response to the case against Michael Flynn being dropped.

He told Nicolle Wallace that the DOJ “can’t defend” Flynn’s actions “so instead what they’ve done is they’ve decided to blame the prosecutors.”

“The Justice Department sounds like basically a bunch of defense attorneys, and that’s of course not the role of the department, particularly not in a circumstance in which the person has pled guilty, as he has twice,” Katyal continued. “I have been talking to person after person last night and today who are there and they’re beside themselves because, you know, we’ve seen a lot of threats to the rule of law over the last three years, but this kind of encapsulates it all. It’s the purest form of, if you’re the president’s pal, one kind of justice for you and if you’re someone else… there’s something different that you face.”

At one point he blasted Bill Barr and said the AG is “hoping people with a conscience” leave the DOJ “so he can fill them with lackeys of his choice.”

“These are frankly thugs who are running the Justice Department right now, and it is a real threat to the rule of law, and Barr’s counting on the fact that his thuggery is going to work,” Katyal said.

He added that “the traditions of the department and the DNA of the department is so strong and just like our country is strong enough to survive Trump’s misadventures on the pandemic, I think the Justice Department is strong enough to survive this.”

You can watch above, via MSNBC.