turn your back on the department of justice. >> black women, turn your backs on the department of justicee department of justice is behind us. in solidarity with your black sisters. if you are not a black woman, take a knee. take a knee. take any, take a knee. >> take a knee. if you are taking pictures, take a knee. [singing] [cheering] [applause] >> black women matter. >> hey hey, ho ho, donald trump . black women matter. black women matter. black women matter. black women matter. black women matter. black women matter. black women matter. black women matter. black women matter. black women matter. black women matter. black women matter. black women matter. black women matter. black women matter. black women matter. black women matter. >> we're watching the march for pausedjustice as it has on pennsylvania avenue in front of the justice department in washington dc. this is a coalition of groups from all over the country, and there are sister marches matching it around the country as well today. we continue to watch as they pause, holding signs and cheering. [drum beating] [indiscernible

[chanting] >> our long history we have had with the department of justice. killing of black women, of black women, lynching of theirwomen -- we say names. sandra bland. >> sandra bland. in there somewhere. rosa parks was our champion and knew that we had rights, and that the department of justice owed us everything. what does the department of justice owe black women? >> everything! >> say their names. say their names. and all of our mothers and grandfathers and great grandpas. >> [applause] >> what does the department of justice owe us? >> everything! >> what does the department of justice owe us? >> everything! >> what do we want? >> justice! >> when do we want it? >> now! >> what do we want? >> justice! >> when do we want it? >> now! everybody take a look at this building. the policies where the people are suffering from. we hold department of justice to account. hold racist policy, racist policing, surveillance to account. that is why we are here. >> [applause] >> we want everyone to know where this building is. this is where your complaints need to go. t

government and local police departments to reduce misconduct would be reviewed by the trump justice department. the move was interpreted by some as giving leeway to embattled urban police departments, a prime example being the city of chicago which was sued last month by the illinois attorney general for not doing enough to protect civil rights. they recommended 99 reforms of which the city according to chicago reporter has only fully implemented six. i want to bring in jonah newman. he's a data reporter for the chicago reporter which recently launched an online tracking tool to monitor the city of police reform. jonah, thank you for being with us this morning. >> thank you for having me. >> you know i've commit the as many have our lives toward many things in civil rights including police reforms. i've watched this very carefully. i met with sessions and outraged they're kind of backing up. and your paper, your online gathering of datas is head out of the 99 recommendations the obama justice department had had made to the chicago police department. only six have been implemented? >> yes. so f

in a court filing friday the justice department said both fbi and the justice department's national securityion confirm they have no records related to wire types as described by the march 4th, 2017, tweets. trump justice department debunks president trump's tweets in court, but that doesn't mean the trump supporters now have to believe that the trump tweets were not true, because this is the country where the truth is what you say it is. that is the case made by curt anderson in his brilliant book "fantasyland" about how america wenthaywire. that history tells us exactly how we got a president trump. it tells us marco rubio can stand on the stage against donald trump and call him a fraud and a con man and be right about that, and still lose to donald trump in the republican primaries. in my own analysis on this program of how we got a president trump, i looked at first the news media's treatment of the trump campaign, especially cable tv news, and then i looked back at sarah palin's vice presidential campaign where public ignorance was something republicans defended, and then i looked at en

sides and so now it's the kind of in justice department and it is come out on the side of the state of texas and the republican. they're saying well no problem with a discriminatory id law so the big change once again is that our own justice department which is supposed to stop this type of nonsense this type of discrimination in fact became suddenly became the lawyers for the discriminators it's it's a horrific change coming out of jeff beauregard sessions justice department and we're going to see it beyond texas i'm afraid this is a real real dangerous trend though it absolutely is under jeff sessions the d.o.j. has actually begun defending these voter suppression id laws in court as you just pointed out how concerned should we be about lasting damage to voter rights because of the efforts of this ministration. oh well it's lasting damage because it's simple if you play games with the voter rolls and you play games with the right to vote you get to elect the congress that wasn't really elected by the people and therefore you know the games will continue on again you know texas why

the justice department is an arm of the executive branch. we, in congress, have outsourced the investigation to the executive branch by and through the justice department. . speaker, that can give the they must also look right. t could look to some like that outsourcing has created a circumstance by which the executives, the chief executive, the president, could influence the attorney general. that's the way it could look. but, mr. speaker, that's not what the intent is that we have in the constitution, article 2, section 4. that's not the intent. the intent was for the judiciary committee, the judiciary committee and the united states of the united states of america, that's where the power lies, because it is for impeachment and outsourcing it to the executive branch so the executive branch, we give the appearance that impeachment requires the commission of the crime. they are looking for that. the justice department wants to know what crime was committed under what circumstances. and if the justice department does not find that a crime was

and justice department? >> i think there are any number of episodes that reinforce the need for independence in the justice department. that is not unique to the last eight months. in my mind, efforts to create permissible independence and protections is laudable. >> i agree. if you go back to the record of a 1999 hearing about whether the independent counsel law should be renewed, a number of lawyers testified that they frequently felt pressure. not necessarily being boston around, but they did not want to investigate their friends or get in trouble with their boss. there are concerns. that is in important reason to create independence. >> thank you. >> senator lee. >> thank you. i would like to start back with you, professor poser. wife congressional oversight not enough? we have investigations going on in some of the matters. why is the opportunity to investigate through congresses oversight functions not adequate? >> i would use watergate as an example. the real break in watergate happened when the judge

had made a surrepetitious deal with nixon's justice department, the justice department had been pursuingantitrust lawsuit against itt, trying to stop that company from gobble ugh even more companies and becoming larger. conglomerate. itt did not like that legal pursuit. by the justifies jufts department. to try to evade that scrutiny, to try to squirm out it, they made this secret deal. the justice department would go easy, and in exchange, nixon's beloved san diego convention would get that much close tore reality, because itt would make a huge monetary donation to the convention, they donated $400,000, which in today's dollar would be a couple million dollars. >> jack anderson got that scoop, he got that internal memo from itt and he wrote about it. the whole thing just blew up, and suddenly the san diego republican convention didn't seem like such a good idea anymore. the lobbyist tried to claim the memo wasn't real, but the fbi had already authenticated it. it turned out the fbi had been pressured by the nixon white house to not authenticate it, to disprove the memo and call it a for

our oversight, which as we discussed in the investigation, there is clear oversight of the justice department and therefore, matters of obstruction of justice are within the jurisdiction of this committee. hopefully we will be able to obtain that.t a i just haven't had a chance to tell you that. >> think you. >> welcome everyone to this very important committeeee meeting and hearing that has very basic constitutional issues that are connected with it. we have an outstanding panel to help us go through this so today's hearing we will hear testimony related to to bills recently introduced by members of our committee, 1735 introduced by grahamha whitehouse campbell and all as well as their members of the a committee and senator booker who is not a member of this committee and 1741 introduced by senator tillis and coons. these bills have some things in common.fy each attends to codify d.o.j. regulations about removals of special counsel. each bill provides for judicial review of removal decision, and each bill has bipartisan support. it is also clear that each bill is motivated by similar concern

the justice department dropped its claim that texas' voter i.d. law was passed with intent to discriminate and less than two months later a federal judge found the law was passed with such intent. why do you think the civil rights division would have abandoned a meritorious claim of intentional race discrimination? >> well, the attorney general jeff sessions has long been in opposition to the aggressive and vigorous prosecution of the voting rights act, and so it was no surprise to us. we were cocounsel with the attorney general on that case that there would be less enthusiasm about continuing to prosecute the case. but i think the decision to abandon the intentional discrimination claim was actually a very particular one. the intentional discrimination claim carries with it the possibility of a very particular remedy under the voting rights act, and that remedy is bail-in, which we heard mr. saenz talk about earlier. that is the ability, the possibility of returning preclearance to a jurisdiction that has been found to engage in intentional discr

which is a really big job at the justice department. the alpha bank guy.nd it's not like all the unresolved questions about this got settled before they held the vote on him. >> i want to make sure that you understand what has not been answered as of this moment when we're being asked to vote. i asked is alpha bank under federal, criminal investigation by the justice department? mr. rosenstein said i won't answer that. second question, what is the view of the intelligence committee on the server communications between alpha bank and the trump organization during the 2016 campaign? again, mr. rosenstein said we won't reply to that. we won't answer that. fellow members of the committee were being asked to chose one of the highest ranking individuals in the department of justice that will make hundreds if not more decisions on prosecutions that could involve as we know this whole question of the russian involvement in the last campaign. he comes to it having made what i think are really poor judgments as to his personal involvement with this. >> all the democ

in february, the justice department reversed a long-standing litigating position with the texas voter i.d. law, was intentionally racially discriminatory. thankfully, federal courts continue to uphold that finding, despite the justice's change in position. in june on the very same day that the decision was announced, the civil rights division sent an unprecedented letter. it was never before done to 44 states asking for extensive information on how states maintain their rolls in what appears to be a prelude to voting purge efforts. and in august, the justice department filed a brief with the supreme court in the institute case reversing its position of very long-standing position arguing that it should be easier for states to remove registered voters from their rolls. and then we have, as you all know, and we have talked about, president trump's so-called advisory commission on election integrity. which is really set up to investigate the president's rather absurd allegations that millions have voted illegally in the 2016 election. we know that the real reason the commission was creat

when you get a lawsuit like this, your justice department is compelled to answer honestly. that's what the department peoples it's done. there are people, some people justice department out to get us, and that's why they did this filing in such a flat way, but, you know, the department, you know, frankly, has a long record of people who work there, you know, being part darn partisan. >> all right, david gergen, we always appreciate the insight. >> caller: good to talk to you again. >>> coming up, a follow up to a family rescue going viral because of this video. it's the plight of penny the pig and her family. we return home with the iker family after more than 13 feet of flood waters went into their house. you're live in the "cnn newsroom." nd if i sit here? not if you want your phone to work. let me guess, can't livestream your lobster roll. and my mobile pay isn't connecting and i just got an unlimited plan. right plan, wrong network. you see, verizon has america's largest, most reliable 4g lte network and now unlimited plans start at $40 per line, you know what i'm saying

even under the best of circumstance, it's often difficult for the justice department to come in and rendertments be held accountable. on the second hand, what the department of justice can do, is do what it did under president obama with eric holder and then loretta lynch. the justice department can come in and have a finding that suggests a systemic pattern of segregation, of intimidation, of discrimination, of gjim crow, ad then they can work with that police department to work out the kinks and to address its systemic inequities. we know under jeff sessions this department just decided yesterday or the day before that it will withdraw an obama era consent degrees, if you will, with these department, and will withdraw that leg of the justice department that looks into these matters. so not only are we handcuffed in terms of the burden of proof, the disinclination of the trump justice department to take seriously the claims of regular citizens against the police departments. this is the vicious consequence of not only the limitations structurally placed on the justice department, but the

attorney about sarah sanders the person saying that the justice department should investigate more about komi and false testimony he gave to congress to look. prosecute james komi what do you make of that kendall well let me first about the president's alleged we'll call it spinning the statement that his son was to issue about the meeting and trump laws on it as we know it's a crime to mislead federal investigators it's not a crime to mislead the press so that will be the key issue but what's going to be fascinating is when the day comes and the f.b.i. and mall are interviewed trump what is the president going to say about that. well lenny apparently was has some technical difficulties with here in los angeles and a fiber connection to miami so if you could pick up on what i was talking to campbell about we apologize to kendall coffey we hope to have him back soon at another date but lanny what about what he was commenting on and about the white house claiming that tommy gave false information to the justice department should prosecute him well first of all kendall has it right it's not

justice department blocking the u.s. senate from interviewing roib officials involved in the firing of james comey. so what does that mean for the robert mueller investigation. >> stay with us. patrick woke up with back pain. but he has work to do. so he took aleve. so what does that mean for the robert mueller investigation. >> stay with us. comey. so what does that mean for the robert mueller investigation. >> stay with us. to stop tough pain for up to 12 hours with just one pill. aleve. all day strong. w...i was always searching for ways to manage my symptoms. i thought i had it covered. then i realized managing was all i was doing. when i finally told my doctor, he said humira was for people like me who have tried other medications,... but still experience the symptoms of moderate to severe crohn's disease. in clinical studies, the majority of patients on humira saw significant symptom relief... ...and many achieved remission. humira can lower your ability to fight infections... ...including tuberculosis. serious, so

we are live at the justice department. this is where attorney general jeff sessions is excited to end of the deferred action for childhood arrivals program known as daca which text immigrants who are brought here illegally as children. while makers have the opportunity to act appeared the president waiting congress, get ready to do your job, daca. chief white house correspondent john roberts is live at the justice department. he's in that very room and he drives. this peacoat we just at the two minute morning so about a minute and 452nd from now, the attorney general will come out and he will announce and end to the act as we know it. there will be a six-month period between now and the fifth of march during which congress have an opportunity to try to come up with a permanent fix. we were walked through a conference call just short time ago with the department of homeland security with all the various details which we will reveal to you later. we are on an embargo basis until the attorney general finishes what he has to s

for the investigation and prosecution of fired fbi director james comey for months and the justice department we learned today is now investigating comey and the department of justice inspector general leaving the investigation on two fronts. first, examining the role of the former fbi director in the agency's probe of hillary clinton's e-mail scandal and also the director's possible violations of the hatch act that prohibit overt partisan political conduct on the part of our government officials. the white house today saying it fully supports those investigations and press secretary sarah sanders declaring president trump's been vindicated by his decision to fire, a if following revelation after revelation about the former at the eye directors conduct in the weeks and months leading up to his dismissal. >> i think there's no secret comey by his own self admission leaked privilege government information weeks before president trump hired him to comey testified in fbi agent in engaged in the same -- he sets his own stage iv himself on that front that his actions were improper and widely consid

justice department. that of course, was the white house and this president spitting in the eye of the fbi and justice department. but that ends up being important beyond just that insult to american law enforcement because aside from malaysia, the other known major target of the fbi's kelp tocracy asset recovery, the target other than malaysia is ukraine and specifically this guy who is also believed to have looted his country's treasury for his own benefit and who the fbi has been chasing ever since trying to figure out where victor stashed all of ukraine's money and where and how he laundered it and how the stolen money and assets it's converted to can be recovered and repatrioted and given back to the people of ukraine, that is a major fbi effort under this initiative started by eric holder. paul manafort, donald trump's campaign chairman was the senior political advisor during his klept criteria period which the fbi had been investigating for years now. and until about 7:00 tonight, what seemed like

>> without further adieu, let us hear from our first speaker for the rally in front of the justice department, that is here now from jay david cox senior, the national president of afge. >> no justice, no peace. brothers and sisters, i come to you today from the american federation of government employees. the people that said, government is good and government should stand for all of its citizens in an equal mannerism. brother and sisters, i come to you today with love. it's time to that we bring back love to this country. let's stop and think. hatred of the stranger, people who are different. people who come from somewhere else. speak another language. have different couples, eat different food. the bible is the oldest document that challenges that. the old testament says the stranger as a native because our ancestors were strangers in the land of egypt and knew what slavery in opposition were all about it in the new testament, matthew tells us the love of strangers -- i was hungry and you gave me food. i was thirsty and you gave me drink and i was a stranger and you welcomed me in. brother

department of justice. now an acting director of the criminal justice project at the lawyers' committee for civil rights under law. cheryl is calling in from louisiana. caller: good morning. agreed like to say that i that the military equipment should be put in the hands of those that are qualified, trained, like a swat team. tanksery city should have , heavy equipment and arms. i have seen a tank in a new orleans area. being used. i was stunned when i saw that. unqualified. our military are not the first responders that we have to terrorist attacks, it is those who are the first responders, the police officers. i do believe that every large , ay that may feel a threat terrorist threat, -- such little small city and , your guest has spoken about, no that would be very wasteful. the would not be appropriate in my opinion. myesha at's give my yo chance to respond. guest: you're hitting on something very important. at the obama administration was a career federal employee. i was not a political appointee. the

and justice department. he was expired by mcgraph, the attorney general, at truman's request and the investigation was never completed as a result. so that's the thing we have to worry about. that's what warranted the independent counsel statute. if it produced unnecessary investigations that's not the problem here because the attorney general retains the power to make the appointment in the first place. senator leahy: let me ask you another way. the president, the white house could undercut or think they could undercut. they cut back the budget of the special counsel and you talked about the op-ed that was in "the new york times." you could attempt to undermine the special investigation's budget. i'm vice chairman of the appropriations committee and we have congress appropriation powers. can congress assert a role in ensuring the president or attorney general or acting attorney general cannot undercut or eliminate the funding for the special counsel? >> you do have the power. you do have the power. under ex

the department of justice has advised the president and the department of homeland security that the department of homeland security should begin an orderly lawful wind down, including the cancellation of the memo that authorized this program. acting secretary duke has chosen appropriately to initiate a wind down process. this will enable the department of homeland security to conduct an orderly change and fulfill the desire of this administration to create a time period for congress to act should it so choose. we firmly believe this is the responsible path. simply put, if we're to further our goal of strengthening the constitutional order and the rule of law in america, the department of justice cannot defend this overreach. george washington university law professor jonathan turley in testimony before the house judiciary committee was clear about the enormous constitutional infirmities raised by this action. he said, quote, in his testimony, in ordering this blanket exception, president obama was nullifying part of a law that he simply disagreed with. if a president can claim sweep

in the obama administration justice department. we can only wonder who president trump would have put in that job if the president or anyone working for him had any idea how important that job is, and i mean how important that job is to president trump. and so the acting assistant attorney general of the tax division is not a trump man. and in the end, it could turn out that filling that job was actually a lot more important to donald trump personally than filling that supreme court vacancy. nbc news has new details about the contemporaneous notes that former trump campaign chairman paul manafort took during the now infamous june 2016 meeting that donald trump jr. arranged with russian nationals on the promise that he would receive, quote, dirt on hillary clinton. paul manafort's notes, quote, included a mention of political contributions near a reference to the republican national committee, two sources briefed on the evidence told nbc news. nbc news initially reported that the notes contained the word "donation," but a spokesman

they haven't done good work. >> remember, tucker, justice department -- trump's own justice department said there is no evidence, they could find no evidence that, in fact, he or trump tower had been wiretapped. if there is a political motivation as you suggest, you would think that a trump justice department would come to some conclusion that's more in line with the idea that tweet back in march was accurate. >> tucker: possibly. that stuff happens as you know and my only point is again and again. i'm an american citizen so before you bring me to war along with morgan freeman, i want some evidence. so the u.s. government never examined. the fbi never examined the servers at the democratic national committee. and yet, as you know, so i'm only saying and i would think liberals would join me in saying that, again, before we go to war, why don't you show me one piece of evidence that the government of russia was involved in hacking the d.c. computers. and they have not given us one. why aren't we demanding it? that's my question. why are we nodding in this bovine way they told us this. it

the justice department citing special counsel mueller's russia investigation in its refusal to provide those officials for interview. steven boyd wrote this. saying quote. the scope of the committee's inquiry has not been deconflicted with special counsel mueller's investigation. therefore to protect the integrity of the special counsel's investigation, we'll not be able to provide them for interviews at this time. the likelihood james comey will be facing investigation. it is clear much has changed in washington of late. where james comey and hillary clinton it seems are facing rising prospects that they may be held accountable for their conduct. >> it's shock, but i'm even couraged. back in july of 2016, corrector comey's preposterous present briefing about hillary clinton's violation of national security law in my opinion comey should have been under investigation at that point. but we have to hold our breath and wait a while. but the fbi, three days of white house briefings. the fbi might call that a clue as to what the expectations are from the white house. >> there are a rising n

martin. >> and the justice department should certainly look at the

hop duo insane clown positives see speaking out about their classification as a gang by the justice department. mike, looking peaceful so far. >> reporter: well, that's absolutely right, frances and as a matter of fact the speaker behind me right now is citing the fact that there were counter proefrs, some that identified themselves as antifa that were on the fringes of this just off to the side here in the heart of the nation's capitol on the national mall. there were some confrontations, but mostly, oddly enough, there was discourse, long conversations that got to be frankly a little bit boring at some points. frances, we are here on the national mall, the heart of american democracy. i could probably hit a golf ball to the african-american museum. and race relations are at the top of peoples minds. in a sense this is a reaction to what happened in charlottesville from trump supporters who feel as though it was ugly and misrepresented them. i spoke to a number of them before the speakers took the podium earlier today. >> a lot of people will try and associate it with charlottesville and whit

the justice department released. all of the members of the japanese prime minister's with the president at the florresort back in february. a meeting you'll recall that got lo not-so-private discussion of a federal court ordered them to release records subject to a r. the justice department saying the government believesa information is not subject to foia. the et groups asked for visitor logs for mar-a-lago, trump tower and us for records visiting the president, not his extended family. freedom of information act requests req disclosure of government documents that exempts the white house fr requests but the ethics groupe that the visitor logs are under t of the them subject to open records re why is this all impo anyway? president trump d mar-a-lago 25 days between inauguration day and mid may often with high level officials has the rino is meeting with the president wherever he holds meetings, especially giv intersection between the and president trump's vast business interests.s argue of the records provide poten

also, the justice department and fbi i believe formally denied that charge. so it's a little closer, but not a horseshoe at this point. >> it's significant that the fbi and the department of justice said that trump -- >> meaning that he was not a target. and even if trump were picked up in this kind of fisa surveillance, he would normally be minimized, which means that they would screen out what he was saying and his name -- or his identity would be masked in the communication. and the only way that they would reveal to anyone looking at it who it was that manafort was talking to is if they needed to know the identity of the person in order to make sense of the communication or it gave additional information. >> well w it would be minimized if he was not involved in the investigation. >> absolutely. that's right. >> but if he was involved. >> that's right. >> i mean -- >> if he was just talking to manafort about campaign strategy or about nothing to do with collusion or anything like that. >> right. it would be minimized. but if they were talking about russia.

was, a weakened the bill civil rights division of the justice department survived. as you know so well, it still exists, making an impact for six decades. the new commission at that time had two mandates. one, investigate any deprivation of voting rights and study the laws and policies of the federal government to ensure equal protection of the law. southerners drag of the employment process, especially for appointees perceived as anti-segregationist. they were finally confirmed on march 5, 1958. thee the 1957 act, commission has been preauthorized and reconfigured by legislation in 1983, 1991, 1994. i might add all of this is not what i'm in next for it on so i don't mind if you catch me in an error. the commission published its first report in september of 1959, recommending the federal registrars help african-american voting registration. anthony for low-cost housing throughout the nation. they assessed voting in montgomery, alabama, and encountered fierce resistance from governor george wallace. they held here i --er george wallace. in housing discrimination atl

rosenstein: it has been very frustrating at the department of justice. we have some superb nominees for the leadership positions in the department of justice and the process has been extremely slow. the confirmation process, for reasons having nothing to do with the merit of the candidates, has been slowed down. i think that's what to me is most depressing about the current circumstances. it would be understandable if occasionally there are issues with a particular nominee. but for the most part, the just a matter of being mired down in process for people that we know are exceptionally qualified and ultimately will be confirmed. so that's not my responsibility, the legislative branch. but i do think it would be certainly better for everybody if the congress could at least identify folks who really aren't controversial nominees, who are going to be confirmed eventually, and rather than delaying their confirmation, rather than disrupting their lives, and creating difficulties not just for the department of justice, for other agencies of government, to allow