AILSA CHANG, HOST:
Over the past week, the Trump administration has pursued investigations into the chairman of the Federal Reserve and sitting lawmakers. At the same time, leaders of the Justice Department have ruled out a civil rights investigation against the federal officer who shot and killed motorist Renee Macklin Good in Minneapolis. The Department of Justice is once again at the center of the news, so we have asked NPR senior political editor and correspondent Domenico Montanaro and NPR justice correspondent Carrie Johnson to discuss what's been happening over the last week. Hello to both of you.
DOMENICO MONTANARO, BYLINE: Hey there.
CARRIE JOHNSON, BYLINE: Hi there.
CHANG: Carrie, let's start with you. It feels like we have been seeing, like, an escalation for the Justice Department and the Trump administration this week, like, both when it comes to the tactics that this administration uses and their willingness to push the boundaries of the law, right? Is this all part of some bigger goal, you think?
JOHNSON: Definitely. Virtually everything that's happened over the past week could have been predicted on Inauguration Day. President Trump returned to the White House promising to investigate his perceived political enemies. And after the election, people were worried about DOJ, but changes there have been more sweeping and more quick than many of them feared. The Supreme Court in the immunity case made clear President Trump and future presidents are largely immune from prosecution for their official actions in office. And so this is an aggressive Justice Department under Trump's full command - really the culmination of statements he made on the campaign trail.
CHANG: That's right - on the campaign trail. Because as a candidate, he promised - right? - to go after his enemies. He also promised to be tough on immigration. Domenico, how are people responding to what's been happening in Minnesota specifically?
MONTANARO: Well, the situation in Minneapolis is really highlighting some of these aggressive tactics of the Trump administration. There's new polling this week out from a couple of outfits. A Quinnipiac poll found that 57% disapprove of the way that ICE is enforcing immigration law. Fifty-three percent said that they don't think that the shooting was justified, while only 35% say that it was. And this has become the real problem for Trump on something that had been an advantage with immigration. You know, people may be in favor of deporting criminals who are in the country illegally, but they've also been saying for months that they see this administration's approach as going too far or acting too harshly when it comes to deportations. And that's been dragging down Trump's numbers overall on immigration.
CHANG: Well, Minnesota, I mean, it's just one part of the story this week, right? Like, Democrats in Congress say that they are being investigated over a video urging military members to disregard illegal orders. How did those investigations fit into what we've been talking about?
JOHNSON: Yeah, several Democrats this week told us they've heard from the FBI and agents who want to interview them. They say this is an infringement on their First Amendment rights and potentially their rights as lawmakers as they try to do their jobs. One of them, Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona, has gone so far as to sue the Pentagon, which has been threatening to reduce his rank and benefits over what he said in that video.
MONTANARO: Yeah. And I have to say, from a raw politics perspective, I mean, do Republicans really want to elevate the profiles of people like Mark Kelly, the senator from Arizona, or Elissa Slotkin, the senator from Michigan? They're two of the more moderate members of the Democratic caucus. You're talking about an astronaut, a former CIA analyst. I mean, they'd cut pretty good profiles for 2028 candidates. And I'd venture to say that if not for how the Trump administration has gone after them, Kelly in particular would not likely be somebody who's as much part of the 2028 conversation as he is now. And it's also just not the wing of the Democratic Party that politically you would think the Republicans would want to highlight.
CHANG: So maybe they're shooting themselves in the foot. Well, there was more this week. The Department of Justice is investigating Jerome Powell - as we said, the chairman of the Federal Reserve. And then we saw that the FBI searched the home of a Washington Post journalist. Carrie, can you just explain what's been happening on those fronts?
JOHNSON: Yeah, a real whirlwind. On Sunday night, Jerome Powell, the Fed chairman, made a video explaining that he seemed to be under criminal investigation for testimony he gave on Capitol Hill about renovations to the Fed's buildings. Powell basically said this was a smokescreen - that President Trump wants to get rid of him because the Fed wasn't moving as quickly as Trump wanted on interest rates. And then a few days later, FBI agents showed up in the morning at the home of a Washington Post reporter. They took two laptops, a phone and a smartwatch. The Justice Department says this is tied to an investigation of a federal contractor who's been accused of retaining government secrets. But to search a reporter's home is a stunning step, one that past administrations had avoided and one that also may run afoul of a federal privacy law.
CHANG: I mean, it seems like retribution is a major theme now in Trump's second term, yeah?
MONTANARO: Yeah, for sure, it's a huge motivating factor. I mean, remember, he's been smarting from investigations that were going into him for years, and he's been promising, quote-unquote, "retribution." And that's coming to fruition now. You know, it's really become a sort of political platform in the second term - fuel for a conservative grievance. He's gone after any number of perceived political enemies, whether it's former officials who've spoken out against him, journalists, universities, law firms - you name it.
CHANG: Yeah. Well, Carrie, how are people inside the Justice Department responding to some of this backlash?
JOHNSON: They're not saying much about the investigation of Jerome Powell or the one of Democratic lawmakers on the video, but they are defending the immigration efforts in Minnesota. The deputy attorney general, Todd Blanche, says federal immigration officers are risking their lives in Minneapolis under chaotic conditions and they have to make split-second decisions. He says he sees no reason to open a civil rights investigation into Renee Macklin Good's death. Instead, DOJ seems to want to investigate Good's widow and any tie she has to activist groups.
CHANG: And that suggested direction of the investigation does not seem to have gone over well with some of the career prosecutors in the DOJ, right? Like what's the latest there?
JOHNSON: Major unrest in the U.S. Attorney's Office in Minnesota. Several prosecutors quit. These resignations are part of a broader pattern that's been happening across the country since Trump took office in Tennessee, D.C., Virginia, and of course, what happened in last year in New York with the dropping of the case against former New York City Mayor Eric Adams. In all of these instances, the ethics of career prosecutors are being put to the test. And so long as the president commands the Justice Department to target his critics, it's likely to keep happening.
CHANG: That is NPR's Carrie Johnson and Domenico Montanaro. Thank you to both of you.
MONTANARO: You're welcome.
JOHNSON: My pleasure. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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