By: Donald V. Watkins
Copyrighted and Published on February 15, 2020
Dear President Trump,
I was shocked to see Attorney General William Barr's harsh criticism of your presidential tweets and public statements regarding several Department of Justice (DOJ) cases under investigation and in litigation, particularly the tweets about the Roger Stone case. Barr claimed your tweets were making it "impossible" to do his job.
I am a lawyer, journalist, entrepreneur, and longtime political independent. I have 47-years of litigation experience in the federal court system. My track record as a litigator has resulted in a record number of landmark cases. (See, www.donaldwatkins.com). I have handled hundreds of civil cases where my clients' interests were aligned with those of the United States and quite a few criminal cases where their interests were adversarial to the government’s position.
For the most part, the public policies of the United States are defined by the person who is elected as our president. As president, you have four to eight years to push your public policy initiatives through Congress. The DOJ's job is to defend these initiatives in the federal court system and to pursue the fair administration of criminal justice.
One of the public policy initiatives you have championed is the long-overdue reform of the nation's "rigged" federal criminal justice system. This reform initiative is designed to reign-in the government's network of unelected, unsupervised, uncontrollable, and "corrupt" federal prosecutors. For a variety of reasons, the federal courts and past Attorneys General have refused to tackle this problem.
Sir, you do not need a study commission to tell you how "rigged" the federal criminal justice system really is. You, Mr. President, experienced politically-motivated rogue federal prosecutors first hand. Barack Obama-era DOJ officials, including FBI Chief James Comey, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, and many others in senior leadership positions in the DOJ tried to destroy you and your oldest three children during the first two years of your presidency. The designated "hit man" for this attempted coup d'etat was Special Counsel Robert Mueller. The only thing that stopped these rogue DOJ officials from succeeding was your intestinal fortitude, unconquerable spirit, and the sheer power of your tweets to the American people. You literally saved your children and yourself from the jaws of evil. Democrats were devastated when you de-balled Mueller.
Jeff Sessions, your first Attorney General, was too weak and timid to reign-in the rogue Mueller prosecutors. Sessions made up some lame excuse that he had to recuse himself from the Mueller investigation to avoid supervising these officials. Sessions' recusal effectively green-lighted Mueller's reign of terror. Mueller's lawlessness eventually ensnared Roger Stone, Paul Manafort, Michael Cohen, Michael Flynn, George Papadopoulos, and others on trumped up process-related crimes (i.e., lying to Congress, making false statements to federal law enforcement officials, etc.), and not any substantive crimes that established collusion between the Trump Campaign and Russia.
Now, William Barr is making excuses for presidential tweets that assure the American public that your criminal reform agenda is on track and is continuing in its success. With all due respect, Mr. Barr needs to implement your criminal justice reform policies without fear, embarrassment, or apologies, or he needs to get out of the way. You don't need another Jeff Sessions.
Why Democrats and the Media Constantly Attack You
On August 2, 2015, about three weeks after you announced your candidacy for president of the United States, I published an article titled, "Donald Trump's Newest Art of the Deal: Winning the American Presidency." The article explained why you would win the presidency.
I did not support your candidacy because I believed the chasm of policy differences between us was too deep and wide to bridge. Likewise, I did not support Hillary Clinton either because I thought Ms. Clinton and Bill Clinton used Ms. Clinton's position as Secretary of State in the Obama administration to implement a pay-to-play scheme for the benefit of the Clinton Foundation.
After you assumed office, I became one of your toughest critics. To this day, I strongly disagree with your policies on immigration, travel bans, global warming, your relationship with Vladimir Putin, and America's new form of isolationism from the international community.
However, I strongly agree with your tax cuts, proposal for expanded scholarships for deserving inner city youths to attend prestigious charter schools, the renegotiated trade deals with Mexico and Canada, the new trade deal with China, your criminal justice reform initiatives, economic growth policies, and revamped approach to funding for NATO, the United Nations, and foreign aid to a host of foreign countries.
You are the first president who has had the courage to say out loud what all modern-day presidents have said in private -- the DOJ is full of rogue FBI agents and prosecutors. You told the public the cold, hard, ugly truth about these people when you said: "Look how they've hurt people. They've destroyed the lives of people that were great people .... Their lives have been destroyed by scum. Okay, by scum."
The FBI is the same agency that tried to make Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., commit suicide after calling him a "thug," a "filthy animal,", and an "evil, abnormal beast." The DOJ is the same agency that is described in a March 1996 OIG Report on "The Good Ol' Boys Roundup" that documented countless instances of FBI, ATF, DEA, and other federal law enforcement officials using hardcore racial slurs, disgusting racist skits, and moronic anti-black literature at an annual event from 1980 to 1995.
These are the same kind of law enforcement officials who tried to make criminals out of you and your three oldest children. After their mean-spirited coup d'etat failed, their allies in Congress tried to remove you from the presidency through impeachment. Thanks to your political savvy and strong alliances with Republican Senators, this flimsy power play backfired.
Ignore Media Pundits and Democratic Critics
Various media pundits and Democratic critics are calling for you to leave the rogue DOJ officials alone. They view your criminal justice reform initiates and tweets about egregious DOJ cases as "meddling." They don't care that DOJ coup d'etat operatives tried to overturn your election, turn your children into criminals, and ruin their lives. If you do not round up these renegades, charge them with the appropriate crimes, and send them to jail, they will likely try to harm you and your children as soon as you leave office.
The DOJ has already let former Deputy FBI Chief Andrew McCabe go free. How many other coup d'etat co-conspirators will escape justice, and why? Instead of lecturing you on your tweeting, this is what Mr. Barr needs to be explaining to you. The Attorney General works for the elected president, not the unelected career DOJ prosecutors who believe they are exempt from supervision and accountability.
Personally, the media pundits and Democratic critics remind me of pet hamsters running on the spinning wheel inside of their cages. None of these people gave you any praise when you freed 63-year-old Alice Marie Johnson from a life sentence for a first-time drug offense after she had spent 23 years in prison and Obama had left her to languish in prison for the rest of her life.
None of them praised you when you signed the First Step Act in 2018, which benefits tens of thousands of black, Hispanic, Native American, female, and poor white federal inmates who have never experienced the fair administration of justice in federal grand juries and courtrooms.
Do your thing, Mr. President! Make the reform of America's federal criminal justice system a reality. Show your friends and foes alike how a strong president reforms ingrained corruption inside the federal criminal justice system.
Thank you!
Sincerely,
Donald V. Watkins
Inmate No. 36223-001
Talladega, Alabama Federal Prison Camp
