Conservative Lawyers Decry ‘Political Weaponization of Prosecutions’ at CPAC

A group of prominent conservative lawyers hosted a panel to discuss the “Political Weaponization of Prosecutions” Thursday at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC).

Rick Graber, the former U.S. ambassador to the Czech Republic and CEO of The Bradley Foundation, served as moderator for Former U.S. Attorney and noted appellate litigator Sidney Powell, Lisa Nelson of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), Pat Nolan of the CPAC host American Conservative Union’s Center for Criminal Justice Reform, and Arthur Rizer from the R Street Institute.

The lawyers discussed the climate of political bias, selective prosecution, “over-criminalization” and systematic disregard for prosecutorial safeguards that, in their view, enabled politically motivated prosecutions of Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) and the falsely accused Duke Lacrosse Team, the IRS targeting scandal, and now most importantly Robert Mueller’s bias-marred special counsel investigation.

“To a politician especially, the damage is done just by filing the charges. Their political life is on the line,” Nolan said.

He cited the case of Sen. Stevens, a decorated World War II hero whose reputation was destroyed by his indictment and conviction for improperly accepting gifts. A special counsel investigation eventually showed prosecutors had hidden evidence and his conviction was voided, but the political damage was done. The Democrats won a seat in Alaska, took the majority in the Senate, and used it to pass Obamacare.

Powell reiterated her investigations into political bias at the Department of Justice, first publicly fleshed out in her book 2014 Licensed to Lie, stemming from the prosecution of Arthur Andersen during the Enron scandal.

“What I’ve witnessed goes back 15 years – maybe a little bit longer than that – to the politicization and weaponization of the Department of Justice,” she told the panel. “They all tie back to a core group of prosecutors that were actually appointed by Micheal Chertoff and Robert Mueller and Larry Thompson in the Bush administration.”

As Powell explained, many of these prosecutors later found influential roles in the Obama administration. She accuses Andrew Weissmann, the reportedly pro-Hillary lawyer trumpeted as Robert Mueller’s “pit bull” by the left-leaning press, in particular, of wrongdoing, trumping up charges and hiding evidence favorable to Powell’s Arthur Andersen employee clients.

“Andrew Weissmann, who is now on Mueller’s ‘Hit Squad’ as I call it, is the lead villain in the book,” Powell continued. “Robert Mueller brought him back into the FBI as general counsel. Mueller has protected Wiessman most of his career.”

After the panel, Powell told Breitbart News Robert Mueller knew of Weissmann’s mode of operation when he picked him for his Special Counsel’s Office investigation. “Oh yes. Mr. Mueller knows exactly what Mr. Weissmann is. As soon as I heard they had raided Paul Manafort’s home, I knew that was Weissmann. If there is a heavy-handed, nasty tactic to use, he will use it.”

Other panelists focused on the politicized use of SWAT team raids and other paramilitary policing tactics where not strictly necessary. “SWAT raids are for people who are dangerous and yet now they’ve been weaponized against people that are willing to cooperate with the government,” Nolan claimed, citing the raid on Paul Manafort that Powell claimed bore Weissmann’s fingerprints. “[G]uns loaded, they kicked in his door, held a gun to his wife’s head while she’s there in bed in her negligee. These stories are legion. And Manafort had offered to turn over whatever documents they wanted.”

Rizer backed Nolan up. “I’ve been in meetings where it was discussed to use SWAT as a tactic because it scares people,” Rizer said. “Since 1985-ish, we’ve seen a rapid decrease in violent crime, but SWAT has gone up in use by 1600 percent.”

“We should understand what we’re actually talking about. I don’t want to be dramatic, but this is what the founding fathers gave us the Second Amendment for, to prevent tyranny,” Rizer concluded. “A prosecutor with pen can put you in jail. It is a big deal. … And we have to be, as conservatives, loud and clear that we will not tolerate this conduct.”