Exposing the DOJ's Dangerous Corruption | Mary McCord

Defending Democracy with Marc Elias

Democracy Docket

News, Politics

4.9 • 702 Ratings

🗓️ 31 December 2025

⏱️ 46 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Former Acting Assistant Attorney General Mary McCord joins Marc Elias to deliver a sobering, inside-the-Justice-Department assessment of how political pressure is corroding DOJ norms, judicial trust, and prosecutorial ethics. Drawing on decades as a federal prosecutor and current work at Georgetown Law, McCord explains the collapse of the presumption of regularity, the rise of misrepresentations to courts, and the dangers of politicized prosecutions—from immigration cases to protest arrests and grand jury shopping. She also discusses the devastating impact on U.S. Attorney’s Offices, why juries are increasingly rejecting overreach, how law students are rethinking careers in government, and why lawyers must now speak publicly to defend the rule of law and constitutional democracy. Support independent journalism: https://newsletters.democracydocket.com/member-youtube Stay informed with the latest news and political analysis: https://newsletters.democracydocket.com/youtube Follow Democracy Docket: Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/democracydocket.com Instagram⁠: https://instagram.com/democracydocket Facebook⁠: https://facebook.com/democracydocket X/Twitter⁠: https://twitter.com/DemocracyDocket TikTok⁠: https://tiktok.com/@democracydocket Threads: https://www.threads.net/@democracydocket

Transcript

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0:00.0	Donald Trump is on a revenge and retribution tour, and it isn't ending anytime soon.
0:05.3	Today's guest, Mary McCord, well, she's here to discuss what it means for all of us.
0:09.5	She's not just a professor at Georgetown Law School, but she's the former Assistant Attorney
0:14.0	General for National Security. And in this conversation, she discusses how Donald Trump
0:18.3	going too far may just be a good thing for Democrats, how lawyers
0:21.7	must speak out, and the lessons we can all learn from, you got it, sandwich guy.
0:26.6	But before we get into any of that, please make sure to subscribe to this channel to stay informed
0:30.9	on how you can defend democracy.
0:33.3	Mary McCord, welcome to defending democracy.
0:35.5	Happy to be here with you, Mark.
0:36.8	Mary, you know,
0:44.6	you wear a lot of hats. You're a professor at Georgetown University Law Center. You host a podcast with Andrew Weissman on MSNBC. And you were the acting attorney general of the United States
0:51.6	under Barack Obama.
0:55.0	So I'm gonna, I think I'm gonna start with,
0:57.0	there's been this kind of ongoing back and forth,
1:00.0	I think, between me and folks like you
1:04.0	about how to judge the political prosecutions that we see.
1:09.0	Obviously, Donald Trump has his Department of Justice
1:12.4	seeking retribution against people like James Comey, Tish James and others. I tend to see this as sort of
1:19.5	a systemic problem. I think that there are some, and I don't want to speak for Andrew, but who see
1:25.6	it as a more case-by-case problem.
1:27.8	How do you see where we are?
	...

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