Pollak: Move the Department of Justice Out of Washington, D.C.

One of the first things the next president must do — assuming it is not Joe Biden or another establishment figure — is move the Department of Justice (DOJ) out of Washington, D.C., to a city in the interior of the country insulated from national politics.

The rot within the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has been clear for years. That agency, which falls within the DOJ, has revealed itself to be so irredeemably corrupted by politics that, as I have argued before, it should be scrapped and rebuilt anew.

But the problem extends to the DOJ. President Donald Trump tried to depoliticize the agency. His first Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, ended the practice of using DOJ slush funds from legal settlements to fund an array of left-wing “community” activists. But Democrats and their allies inside the FBI — including former director James Comey — were able to sideline him, forcing him to recuse himself from the “Russia collusion” investigation. His successor, William Barr, pushed Special Counsel Robert Mueller to stop playing games and produce a report on “Russia collusion.” He also stood up to the Black Lives Matter mobs in the streets — personally. But his later hatred of Trump has led him, inexcusably, to back Special Counsel Jack Smith’s political indictments.

The problem is that the DOJ, like other federal agencies, is staffed by Democrats, who have become the party of government. That problem is compounded by the fact that the DOJ is in D.C., where civil servants climb the ladder from one agency to the next. No one wants to risk a career by stepping out of line — politically, ideologically, or culturally. Therefore DOJ cannot be nonpartisan.

The answer is to move DOJ out of the Beltway — far, far away. Scrap plans to build a new FBI headquarters in Northern Virginia, or Maryland — both Democrat strongholds. Hold a nationwide bidding contest. Pick a winner — preferably in a rural state, and near a transportation hub — and move the agency and the agents out of D.C.

That is just one possible reform. But it is a start.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the new biography, Rhoda: ‘Comrade Kadalie, You Are Out of Order’. He is also the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.