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Pulling back the curtains on wage-theft enforcement in MN; Trump's latest attack is on RFK, Jr; NM LGBTQ+ equality group endorses 2024 'Rock Star' candidates; Michigan's youth justice reforms: Expanded diversion, no fees.

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Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg says rebuilding Baltimore's Key Bridge will be challenging and expensive. An Alabama Democrat flips a state legislature seat and former Connecticut senator Joe Lieberman dies at 82.

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Historic wildfires could create housing and health issues for rural Texans, a Kentucky program helps prison parolees start a new life, and descendants of Nicodemus, Kansas celebrate the Black settlers who journeyed across the 1870s plains seeking self-governance.

Former U.S. Attorneys Press Trump on Law Enforcement Independence

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Monday, March 13, 2017   

RICHMOND, Va. – There's a call for the White House to release its policy on how it will keep from interfering in law enforcement matters.

Less than two months into the new administration, Ian Bassin, executive director of the legal watchdog group United to Protect Democracy, says there have been three reported instances of the White House appearing to do just that.


He says the Trump administration needs to make public its plans to avoid even the appearance of inappropriate political interference.

"These rules are incredibly important to protecting the health of our democracy,” he stresses. “They are hallmarks of the difference between healthy democracies around the world and more authoritarian forms of government."

The group is made up of former Obama administration U.S. attorneys who helped craft rules of conduct, and Bassin says since Watergate both parties have abided by guidelines when it comes to contacts with federal enforcement agencies such as the Department of Justice and the FBI.


Bassin says there's no law preventing someone from the White House from speaking to the FBI, for example, about a current investigation that's under way.

But he adds that's something normally left up to the White House Counsel's Office. He says there have been extensive studies about democratic decline around the world.

"It's not always unlawful activity by an executive that really undermines the democracy,” he points out. “It's the slow unraveling of oftentimes legal activities, and it's incredibly important that we pay attention."

Bassin says the U.S. should be setting an example of what a healthy democracy should look like, and says it's hard for this country to do that if it isn’t abiding by its own guidelines.

He says not doing that lowers the standards and hurts the democratic movement around the world.

Bassin stresses the American people need to know that the Trump administration will abide by rules protecting the independence of federal law enforcement.






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