Sarah Isgur worked at the Justice Department from 2017 to 2019 as director of the Office of Public Affairs and senior counsel to the deputy attorney general, during the investigation into connections between Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign and Russia.
She’s one of 60 people named in “Government Gangsters,” a 2023 book by Kash Patel, Trump’s pick to be the next director of the FBI, as “members of the executive branch deep state” — a “cabal of unelected tyrants” who posed “the most dangerous threat to our democracy.” Patel has since said the incoming Trump administration must deal with the deep state “criminally or civilly.”
As President Biden reportedly considers preemptive pardons for many of Trump’s perceived enemies, such as the people on Patel’s list, Isgur says in a New York Times opinion essay that she doesn’t want a pardon and hopes nobody else will.
“If we broke the law, we should be charged and convicted. If we didn’t break the law, we should be willing to show that we trust the fairness of the justice system that so many of us have defended. And we shouldn’t give permission to future presidents to pardon political allies who may commit real crimes on their behalf.
“This past spring, arguing in a brief to the Supreme Court that Mr. Trump shouldn’t have immunity from prosecution, Mr. Biden’s Justice Department reminded the justices that ‘the executive branch and the criminal justice system contain strong safeguards against groundless prosecutions.’ Many former government lawyers — including a number of us on Mr. Patel’s list — were quick to publicly agree, stressing how dangerous and unnecessary such a grant of blanket immunity would be.
“We emphasized the importance of the rule of law and the trust we had in the jury system. Yet now that the shoe is on the other foot, suddenly we would accept total immunity from prosecution for anything we did during our time in government?”
“A pardon would also let Mr. Patel off the hook. If he wants to prosecute everyone on his list, it’s going to require a lot of law enforcement resources. At a time when much of the American public wants the president to focus on inflation, crime and immigration, voters may not be pleased if drug cartels are a lower priority than prosecuting Liz Cheney for treason.
“And as Americans start to see his lack of evidence, Mr. Patel will look ridiculous. If anything, he may end up making heroes out of his targets, who would, in turn, be able to raise money for the exorbitant cost of their legal defense from outraged Americans until judges would predictably throw out these frivolous cases.
Comments