Elizabeth “She’s Got a Plan for That” Warren has always been a crusader against corruption, and she’s set her sights on taking down U.S. President Donald Trump with her latest idea.
Much like Trump promised to “lock her up,” referring to 2016 rival Hillary Clinton, the Massachusetts senator and progressive Democrat, in an effort to restore “integrity and competence” to the federal government, wants to create an independent task force within the Justice Department that would investigate corruption within Trump’s administration during his tenure as president. Warren announced her newest plan on her website.
“If we are to move forward to restore public confidence in government and deter future wrongdoing, we cannot simply sweep this corruption under the rug in a new administration,” Warren’s plan states.
Part of Warren’s newest efforts to take down Trump stem from a report by the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a “nonpartisan” good government group. The report cites “unprecedented” corruption within the Trump administration.
“That’s why I will direct the Justice Department to establish a task force to investigate violations by Trump administration officials of federal bribery laws, insider trading laws, and other anti-corruption and public integrity laws, and give that task force independent authority to pursue any substantiated criminal and civil violations,” she said in her plan.
There is no evidence of Trump officials taking bribes or being involved in insider trading.
Warren, in a Tuesday tweet, said that she would “take aggressive steps to root out the corruption and incompetence of the Trump administration,” starting on her first day as president if she were to win the election.
I will also direct the Justice Department to establish an independent task force to investigate violations of specific anti-corruption and public integrity laws during the Trump administration, with independent authority to pursue any substantiated violations.
— Elizabeth Warren (@ewarren) January 21, 2020
Typically, new presidents don’t make a point of investigating their predecessors, and Trump has even faced some heat for trying to enact the Justice Department’s power against individuals he thinks are out to get him.
Warren doesn’t want to toe that line, though. Her plan would be an all-encompassing attempt to undo much of what Trump has established. Here are some of the other highlights per CNBC:
- Ask for the resignations of all political appointees, including U.S. attorneys, with exceptions for national security and continuity.
- End federal contracts that the government entered into “as a result of corruption in the Trump administration.”
- Announce her Cabinet choices by Dec. 1, and other top nominations by the middle of that month.
- Refuse to hire any current lobbyists, or any individual who served as a corporate lobbyist in the past six years, with no exceptions.
So Warren looks to be setting up a sweeping action that goes far beyond anything a president has ever attempted.
Democratic primary front-runner Joe Biden said in the past that he wouldn’t interfere with the Justice Department’s decision to investigate Trump or not.
“Look, I would not direct my Justice Department like this president does,” Biden said during November’s Democratic debate. “I would let them make their independent judgment.”
All of this — just like her laundry list of other plans for America — depends on if Warren can even take down first the primary, and then beat Trump in the 2020 election. She is currently third in the latest RealClearPolitics poll with 14.8% of the vote after falling since her early October highs. Biden leads the pack with 28.4%, and independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders is in second with 20.4% of votes.
Iowa is set to host the first Democratic caucus on Feb. 3, and New Hampshire will follow with its own caucus on Feb. 11.