By Ashe O Washington August 31, : US Attorney General Merrick Garland, the major head of the Department of Justice (DOJ) has issued new restrictions and bans employees who are not appointed to the position and its permanent staff from taking part in any political gatherings that are partisan since it has been increasingly under scrutiny and has been accused of being biased towards political causes.
The most talked about move was to bar officials from attending any political event that is partisan and viewed as being an element of any political organization as stated in Garland’s announcement.
“Although the long-standing Department policy allowed non-career employees to attend political events that are partisan, e.g., fundraisers and events of the campaign, in their individual capacities, provided they have received prior approval.In the new policy, non-career employees are not permitted to be a part in any political gathering that is partisan in any capacitywhatsoever,” Attorney General stated in an announcement on Tuesday.
“In the past in the past, when the Department has also limited participation in political events of a partisan nature during presidential election years it has also allowed an exemption for those who were not appointed to a job who had close relatives who were running for political office or similar circumstances,” he added.
“The new policy makes no exceptions.”
The Washington Examiner said that Garland added the previous DOJ policy “allowed employees who were not in the workforce to attend events of the campaign and other activities in their personal capacity in the evening of the election day”.
He declared that “non-career appointees are not allowed to be able to attend political events of a partisan nature even on the evening of the election day”.
The timing of Garland’s order is significant given the examination of the FBI’s raid of Mar-a-Lago.The former president Donald Trump and his allies have accused the FBI and its officials of bias after the FBI’s sweeping search of the president’s Florida resort residence.
Republicans have expressed their belief that the double standard has been displayed with the handling by the Department of Justice of the investigation of Hunter Biden and its inquiry into the former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s handling of classified information stored on an e-mail account that was private, contrasted to the FBI’s search of Mar-a-Lago.
Garland on Tuesday referred to an DOJ-wide memo released by the acting Assistant Attorney General for Administration, Jolene Lauria on Tuesday.
Lauria stated on Tuesday that some DOJ employees, including employees of the FBI and those in the Department’s national security and criminal divisions, were “further restricted” in their political activities according to the Attorney Generals decided that “all candidates for political office are bound by the regulations that govern “further restricted employees in the Hatch Act to ensure there is no appearance that politics is a factor in the department’s day-today operations”.
She added that the appointees of the political class at the DOJ are not allowed to “engage in partisan political activity” or “use their official authority or influence to interfere with or alter the outcome of elections”.
She stated she believes that DOJ officials “must be on guard to avoid the impression that any of our official duties are an attempt to alter the results of an election”.
“As Department employees, we have been given with the power and obligation to apply the law of the US in an impartial and fair manner,” Garland said on Tuesday.
“In taking on this responsibility we must do everything we can to keep the trust of the public and ensure that the influence of politics both in the real world and in appearancewill not undermine or compromise the credibility of our work.”
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