Speaker 1: And we are back with another edition of the Federalist
Radio Hour. I'm Att Kittle, Senior Elections correspondent at The
Federalist and your experienced Shirpa on today's Quest for Knowledge.
As always, you can email the show at radio at
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Our guest today is US Representative Mark Harris, a Republican
representing North Carolina's eighth Congressional district and a member of
the Subcommittee on the Constitution and Limited Government. The committ
held a hearing this week on legislative reforms to end
lawfare by state and local prosecutors, and it was quite
a hearing. Sir, thank you so much for joining us
on the Federalist Radio app.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much, Matt. It's a pleasure to be
with you.
Speaker 1: It is a pleasure to have you with us. Give
us a little overview because I know there were some
sparks on this, but this I can't think of too
many more important things than dealing with the weaponization of
our justice system in America. As we've seen over and
over again the last four years.
Speaker 2: Well, there were some sparks, as you can imagine, during
the hearing. We actually had the hearing earlier in the
week and then the next day came back for a
markup of bills in the process, and so it was
a great conversation I felt like during the midst of
the hearing, just to be able to distinguish these issue
us that we're facing with the lawfare that has taken place.
I think the American public has seen it. I think
they recognized it. I think when they elected a majority
of us in the US House and we flipped the
Senate and we put Donald Trump back in the White House.
I do think a very important part of that was
because the American people have been rejecting really this whole
idea of the weaponization that we have seen of the
Department of Justice under the Biden administration, and really this
whole attitude that has to come to a halt. And
I think that Pambondi and her selection as Attorney General
is going to really and truly begin to make a
difference there. And so the conversation, as we've seen in
many of these hearings, seems to be really just wanting
to ignore what has taken place during the Biden administration.
My friends on the other side tend to just want
to attack Donald Trump. They want to attack Elon Musk,
even in these hearings concerning this whole issue of lawfare.
So it was something to see.
Speaker 1: For sure, no doubt about it. In this is not
a winning strategy for the Democrats. We have seen over
and over again. I mean, we can talk about this further,
the politics of it, which is one thing, you know,
not learning the lessons of course of November in this country,
of the November election. But your chairman, Chip Roy was
a former assistant US attorney of course, opened his opening statements,
he said, every American deserves to have a justice system
that has divorced from the political whims of elected office holders,
political parties, and personal vendettas. That is exactly what we
have seen in the past last four years in the
Biden administration in this country. You laid it all out
in this hearing.
Speaker 2: No question and many of the things that we talked about,
even one of the questions that I asked of the witness,
mister Epstein. Epstein, really was to talk about statements that
he had made about protocols that were not followed on
the Raid of mar Lago and all of the things
that took place, and he highlighted very clearly things that
were done that were improper. And it just led to
again throwing the spotlight on the fact that you didn't
have to follow a protocol, you didn't have to follow
rule of law. It was a matter that the Justice
Department did whatever they wanted to do, however they wanted
to do it to try to build a case. And
then of course we had the problem beyond that of
what's going on in these attorney generals, which really does
set a very dangerous president. And I would think, and
we tried to express this in the hearing, you're setting
a precedent if we don't do something to remove this
lawfare of what's going to stop a strong Republican attorney
general from going after an individual who's a Democrat simply
because of their political persuasion. And so this is something
that really has got to rise above having an R
or a D by your name, because there's a desperate
need in this country without law and order, without an important,
you know, nonpartisan Department of Justice. American people can't have
confidence in our whole judicial system, and I think that
is critical in our day. We've got to restore confidence
and trust in the American people in all of our
branches of government. And I think that's that's part of
what we were seeking to address in this.
Speaker 1: You would think that the Democrats would be all on
board for this, because remember they have spent they spent
an entire election, of course, as they tried to lock
up the Republican's candidate for president. They have tried to
do everything they could to stop him. But they should
want an equal balance of justice, the end of weaponization
of justice, because do they not believe that this could
happen to them? What did they say when asked that
very important question.
Speaker 2: Well, they really don't have an answer as far as
the problem, Matt. They don't have an answer. Their answer
is to simply go back and attack Donald Trump. And
in some cases they tried to replead their case, if
you will, showing videos of one of the cases there
in New York. I think when Donald Trump was convicted
by that jury of their one of those cases in
New York, and they wanted to replay that. So they
just kind of want to replay history. They want to
rewrite history. That the problem boils down to this. Their
policies stink, and the American public does not respond to
their policies. American public does not vote for them. And
if you can't win at the ballot box, your only
alternative is to go to the courts and try to
shop the judge that's going to rule in your favor.
And that seems to be the game they play. We've
seen it in elections, we've seen it in civil cases.
We've seen it now in criminal cases, where they are
just taking the law way out of bounds in order
to go after their political opponents. And that's a real
problem because they can't win at the ballot box.
Speaker 1: Well, Representative Paris, I would say strongly suggest that they've
been successful doing that, and they're still successful at doing it.
Look at the policies again, the Trump administration has put
together an ambitious list and agenda that the American people
voted for in November, and now you see at every
turn it's the appeal to the court of their convenience
basically to try to push out these policies. Now, what
you really examine, I think is so important. Along with
the lawfare against the president who was candidate Trump when
all of this stuff was going on. A lot of
the stuff was going on. This is happening at the
state and local levels. Just wrote a piece for the
Federalists this week about the phony, fake elector's case. That's
a huge issue that remains unresolved. Did that come up
in the hearing? How these Republican alternate electors who had
every right to do what they did in twenty twenty
to preserve the position of President Trump should he prevail
in lawsuits, they have been the subject of a targeted
witch hunt by these leftist prosecutors in Wisconsin, in Arizona
and elsewhere. Did that come up during the hearing.
Speaker 2: I don't recall that specifically. It may have, I'll be
honest with you. The hearing, there's a strategy that's been
employed by the Democrats on our committee at this point,
and the strategy is to offer amendment after amendment after
amendment after amendment and draw out this process really of
things that are not even necessarily relevant to the matters
at hand, knowing that they don't have the votes to win,
but to drag out and this particular hearing ran a
little over six hours. The other day there was a
hearing that ran about seven and a half to eight
hours by this process that they're using. So don't recall
specifically you mentioned what you're mentioning coming up. It could have,
but I just honestly can't recall it this moment that
it did you.
Speaker 1: As you said, it was a lengthy hearing, A lengthy
hearing made that much longer by the gimmicks and the
tricks of the Democrats on this committee. It goes back
to this thing does not happen in a vacuum. There's
a lot of money that's involved in these campaigns that
continue to thwart the basic premises that we have under
the Constitution about justice. And it's happening all over the country,
is it not.
Speaker 2: It is happening all over the country. And we see
it when you have these unelected individuals in some cases
that are pushing their agendas, and of course someday some
cases it's elected individuals. I think we saw that happening
with District Attorney Bragg in New York. We saw that
happening with the Attorney General in New York. People that
have gone into too as part of a campaign process
that we're going to go after this individual. That is
no way for our government to operate. That is no
way for our system of justice to be able to
operate if we're going to preserve this republic. And I
think again, as we mentioned, the American people see it,
they see through it. I think probably the greatest jury
decision that's ever been made was the decision and the
largest jury ever were the American people that spoke on
November fifth of twenty twenty four when they looked and
recognized what President Trump had been put through, and they said, look,
we recognize the bogus actions of these prosecutors and all
the things they have tried to do, and you know,
we're trying to take simple steps. Primarily, one of the
things that we were trying to talk about in that
was getting when somebody doing their job, such as mart
Meadows for instance, who was working for the president, and
you have state prosecutors that decide to make this a
political point that they're going to run on, then somehow
we need to be able for these folks to get
their case to federal court in hopes of getting some
kind of justice. Because when you have things going on,
we've seen it in Georgia. We've seen it in Arizona.
All these kind of things that are happening. We want
to be able to move beyond that. We want to
be able to get it in a system where we
at least have hopes that we can have appeals, they
can make it up to the Supreme Court.
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this is a tough ask because it's early on in
the process, and I know you're working toward this on
your committee. I know Attorney General Pam Bondi is working
through this at the Department of Justice. Do you believe
there will be true accountability? I think of the long
list of names who the American people who really do
value justice blind justice in America. They see players like
even your own colleagues on the left side of the aisle.
Adam Schiff, who blatantly lied you know, has been censured
because of his his activities, his conduct. You see the
prosecutions in the DC Office. You see what happened in
Manhattan with the you know, the Banana Republic show trial.
Will any of these folks ever be held accountable? Do
you believe?
Speaker 2: I hope they will be. Matt, I'll be honest with you.
I think that there is such a volume of material
here of things that this administration is seeking to work through.
I have all the confidence in the world and Attorney
General BONDI. I think the American public in many ways,
when they watched her handle her confirmation hearings, they saw
somebody that was in complete control of what she was doing,
and she responded so well. And I think the American
people have confidence in her. And I do think that
she's going to do all she can to clean up
the Justice Department, and I believe hold accountable as they
do uncover things. I know. One of the things that
we talked about in the early weeks of me joining
the Judiciary Committee, this is my first term in Congress
that I'm honored to be on the Judiciary Committee with
Chairman Jordan. One of the things that we talked about
early on when we were discussing what would happen this
year was bringing in the once the administration was in place,
bringing in some of the folks that had taken these seats,
and allow them to testify to us, and allow us
to ask questions about what they had found inside their department. Again,
to shine the light on it, and again, I believe,
to move public opinion, to expose the realities because these folks, listen,
they must be prosecuted to the full extent of the
law if they have broken the law. And again, many
people have been the victims of this kind of lawfare.
And I think you do have a justice Department at
the present that wants to get to the bottom of it.
And I think that that would be a great deterrent
perhaps to what ever happening. Again, if we did have
some prosecutions.
Speaker 1: That moved forward, well, this subcommittee can definitely help. You're
already doing the heavy lifting, taking the testimony, getting the records.
But I tell you you could not have joined a
more important committee as the Judiciary Committee. You know, I
don't think most Americans fully understand how important the work
of what you know, the chairman Jim Jordan has done,
of course, comer in oversight, and I think of representative style,
your colleague as well from Wisconsin regarding House administration, those
three committees have done just tremendous work in shining a
light getting the word out about just how dangerous this
operation has been in terms of the weaponization of justice.
What what would you like to see ultimately your subcommittee
accomplished because you're dealing with, you know, the really the
roots of this matter.
Speaker 2: I think our subcommittee has an opportunity to look at
a myriad of things that are happening. I mean, we've
we've got needs in our judicial system that I think
our committee is going to have the opportunity to deal with.
We have we have rogue judges that I think are
going to need to be called into account. And I
know that's some of the conversation that's going on right
now appear in Congress, But I really think that really
getting our Justice Department back to what I touched on earlier,
where there is a strong increase in confidence in the
American people that there are competent people, and there are
people that are going to believe justice is blind, that
are not looking for a person's politics to determine whether
or not we're going to move forward with prosecution or
whether we're just going to turn a blind eye to it.
And act like it didn't happen. I think the biggest
thing that our committee can do is to restore the
confidence in the American people that there is a new
sheriff in town, there is a new administration that is
seeking to get things back in order. And I think
this President is doing that. I mean, he is across
the board, not only just through what we're doing in
the Judiciary Committee, but he's moving forward and his promises made,
promises kept. And I think this is an important piece
of the overall picture of restoring confidence in leaders. You know,
one of the questions I've been asked over the last
day or two is what were you feeling when you
were in that room Tuesday night and the President was
delivering that joint address. And I said, one of the
things that was going through is how grateful I am
that we truly have a president, a leader, a visionary
back in the White House that can cast a vision
and then can challenge us. And we in Congress have
got to come alongside and keep moving that agenda forward.
Speaker 1: Well, indeed, the adults in the room have finally arrived.
You're dealing with children. I mean, what we saw Tuesday
night from the Minority Party in this country was just
nothing more than toddler tantrums at times. That seems to
be all they have to offer. So I asked this
question of the work that you're doing on this subcommittee,
the work the you know, the Judiciary Committee is doing
what you were trying to do accomplish in Congress in
dealing with the weaponization of justice? Can you sustain the
onslaught from the accomplice media that is propaganda pressed that
is working alongside of course always has in concert with
this temper tantrum left.
Speaker 2: I think we can. I think we can overcome that.
There are so many media outlets now such as your
podcast here in other ways that are getting the word out,
getting the truth out, that is making common sense. And
I think the more that we are getting the word out,
I think we are going to be able to overcome
the onslaught. There's no question that the media has been
in the pockets of the left, and they've been using
them and using them quite well. And to your point,
they've also learned how to use this system and have
found a level of success of as they say, sue
till it's blue, and they don't continue, no doubt, to
use the courts. But again, we've got to continue to
put the right people on the courts who have the
right understanding, and that's of all of our courts, from
our local, state, federal. We've got to have people in
those places of responsibility that are going to truly follow
the Constitution, are going to understand the importance of just
how fragile this republic is, and so much of it
does ride on the confidence and the trust being restored
in people for what we're doing. So the more that
we can find those alternative sources of media to get
that word out, the better off we're going to be.
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Speaker 1: You've been very generous of your time. I know you've
got a standing appointment here, so I'll just ask this
final question. I'd be remiss if I didn't ask a
representative Congress who's representing the great state of North Carolina.
How are you folks doing? Because you know you were
in the headlines. The state was in the headlines every
day during the horrible hurricane and storms and the damage
that was done. How are you doing? And have you
seen a shift in assistance from the Biden administration FEMA
efforts to the Trump administration FEMA efforts.
Speaker 2: Well, that's a great question. I appreciate you asking it,
and we certainly continue to covet the prayers of folks
for the people in western North Carolina. They're still recovering.
In fact, a team from my church is actually restoring
a house even this week up in Boone, North Carolina.
And there's so many groups that are working North Carolina.
Baptist on Mission Samaritan's Purse, and that's one of the
things that I saw mat I had the privilege of
flying with the President on Air Force One down to
Asheville his first trip after his inauguration when he went
to Ashville on his way to California to the wildfires.
And what I saw that day really was a shift
that began that again is restoring confidence in people. He
told it like it was. He exposed the shortfalls of
FEMA and what they had done, and he basically looked
at us and said, you know, each state has got
to be the ones to lead in their own recovery.
And because the bottom line is FEMA is not getting
it done from Washington, d C. And the people in
the states know the individuals there, they know the resources there,
and he said, we're going to get the support, We're
going to get the money to you, but the folks
within the state need to be the ones taking the lead.
And for lack of a better word, they FEMA needed
to get out of the way. If they weren't going
to help, they were actually hurting the process. So, yes,
we have seen some things that have stepped in. This
administration has been highly sensitive to what's going on there.
We are seeing recovery of folks getting back in their
homes and we're very grateful for that, but there's this
is going to not be a matter of weeks and months.
This is going to be years to really rebuild towns
and help rebuild the lives of these people who lost everything.
Speaker 1: Well, God bless you all. I know that, I know
that is the case. We've seen it so many times before.
You know, the media comes in as all kinds of
stories and the spotlights for the first week they go away.
Your problems are still there. You're still doing the heavy
lifting that it takes to rebuild these communities, and God
bless you in those efforts.
Speaker 2: Well, thank you for asking about that, and thank you
for your continued encouragement and supporting that.
Speaker 1: Absolutely. I want to thank my guest today, Representative Mark Harris, Republican,
representing North Carolina's eighth congressional district. He's a member of
the Subcommittee the House Judiciary Committee, Subcommittee on the Constitution
and Limited Government. They are doing very important work. The
committee held a hearing this week a couple as a
matter of fact, on legislative reforms to end lawfare and
state and local prosecutors. Like I said, extremely important work.
You've been listening to another edition of the Federalist Radio Hour.
I'm Matt Kittle, Senior Elections correspondent at the Federalist. We'll
be back soon with more. Until then, stay lovers of
freedom and anxious the Friend.
Speaker 2: I heard the fame, voice the Reason, and then it
faded away.