First appearance on Fox: A former U.S. senator and longtime political friend of President Biden has openly admitted that the Justice Department was “full of Biden people” during the Obama years, and said Biden’s Justice Department would seek to improve its fairness in high-profile investigations. As she continues to grapple with questions surrounding her sexuality, she has drawn criticism from skeptics.
“The Department of Justice is full of Biden people!” Former Delaware Democratic Sen. Ted Kaufman asked about Biden’s comments about Cabinet positions in a 2012 “Oral History” Senate interview reviewed by Fox News Digital. In response, he said:
“I mean, there’s a lot of Biden people. If you want a list of where the Biden people are, there’s a lot of people at the Department of Justice, there’s a lot of people in our foreign policy agencies, there’s a lot of people in the domestic There are a lot of people in the White House, OMB, places like that.
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Former Delaware Sen. Ted Kaufman (left) and President Biden (right) (Getty Images)
“But financial reform wasn’t one of his primary interests, so he didn’t have the people to work on it. I have to say, after I left the Senate, I had two jobs in the financial sector of the administration. “I was offered two major positions, but I turned them down,” Kaufman continued. “If I hadn’t decided that my days of full-time employment were over and had a different view of where I was going, he would have hired one person in the finance field.”
Kaufman, who Biden called one of his “closest friends in the world” at a White House event last year, has a long history of working with the president, even though Biden was not yet 30 years old. The two say they met. Biden’s sister Valerie, who was Biden’s campaign manager, hired Kaufman to help with her campaign, and Kaufman then joined Biden’s Senate staff, where he worked for 22 years, eventually becoming Biden’s chief of staff. Became an assistant.
Mr. Kaufman was appointed in 2008 to fill the Delaware Senate seat vacated when Mr. Biden moved to the White House as President Obama’s vice president. He served as a member of the Diet for about a year before taking office. Job after winning in special election.
He most recently served as Biden’s 2020 transition chief. As explained in Politico’s profile article Kaufman, who lives minutes from Biden’s Delaware home, is “the guy who literally wrote the presidential transition law” and has “more control over a future Biden administration than anyone other than the Democratic presidential nominee himself.” It’s very likely.”
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President Joe Biden (left) and former President Barack Obama (right) (Getty Images)
White House deputy press secretary Andrew Bates did not address Kaufman’s remarks, instead telling Fox News Digital that “President Biden has restored the Department of Justice’s full independence from politics, a tradition of bipartisanship. I’m proud of that,” he said.
“He also noted that the Trump administration achieved unprecedented job creation and the largest reduction in violent crime in 50 years, after causing the first complete job loss since the Herbert Hoover administration and a spike in violent crime rates. I’m proud,” Bates continued.
Kaufman’s comments resurfaced as Biden’s Justice Department is involved in a major investigation into former President Donald Trump and Biden’s son Hunter, and conservatives are It has long argued that this was politically motivated.
“Joe Biden is the epitome of a corrupt career politician,” Caroline Leavitt, the Trump campaign’s national affairs secretary, told Fox News Digital.
“The only jobs Crooked Joe has ever created are for his equally crooked family members in foreign companies or for his friends on the partisan left in the federal government. Biden against his political opponent, President Trump. The witch hunt has been carefully orchestrated and led by Biden’s leadership of “deep state Democratic friends who make a living by extorting American taxpayers,” Levitt continued. “On the contrary, President Trump has employed thousands of people in successful companies over the decades and had an unprecedented record of job creation in his first term as president, but that was in November. This will continue even if he is re-elected.”
In this photo illustration, Merrick Garland answers questions about his memo to the FBI regarding parent uprisings against CRT televisions and gender ideology policies in schools. (Fox News Digital)
Republican Rep. Lance Gooden of Texas recently sent a scathing letter to the Justice Department and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg last month, calling for hiring Michael Colangelo to his team and charging the former president with 34 charges, including falsifying business records. He emphasized that he intends to prosecute him for the crime. He is accused of paying hush money to adult film actress Stormy Daniels.
Colangelo was previously employed as a senior official in President Biden’s Justice Department, but left that position in December 2022, months before Trump’s indictment, and reportedly worked as a senior prosecutor in the prosecutor’s office. .
Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik, a vocal critic of the Biden Justice Department, said after reviewing the unearthed information, “Joe Biden’s weaponization of the Justice Department amounts to illegal election interference targeting President Trump.” One thing is clear to the American people,” he told Fox News Digital. Kaufman’s famous quote.
Representative Elise Stefanik (RN.Y.), a fierce critic of the Biden Justice Department, told Fox News Digital, “It is clear to the American people that Joe Biden’s weaponization of the Department of Justice is illegal election interference.” ” he said. (Getty Images)
Donald Trump Jr. blasted “Crooked Joe” in a statement to Fox News Digital, saying Biden “has been living in the swamp of Washington, D.C. for over 50 years, and the Department of Justice is at the center of the swamp frenzy.” , therefore Mr. Biden’s influence is significant.” Not surprising. ”
“Anyone in their right mind would understand that the purpose of the corruption case against my father is to try to save Biden politically,” Trump Jr. continued to defend his father. . “It’s shameful that Biden’s minions at the Justice Department are trying to turn America into a banana republic to prevent his father from taking back the presidency.”
Alumni of the Biden campaign pushed back against critics of Kaufman’s comments, telling Fox News Digital that their interpretation was that Kaufman “as a proud former chief of staff to then-Sen. “I’m not talking about how our alumni have succeeded.” Someone is doing something inappropriate. ”
“The Trump campaign’s rationale is that their Justice Department was corrupt, as was the George W. Bush administration and everyone after,” the campaign alum added. “They have not provided any evidence that anything inappropriate happened.”
Attorney General Merrick Garland speaks during a meeting with U.S. Attorney Damien Williams (not pictured) and federal, state, and local law enforcement leaders in New York City, Nov. 27, 2023. Mr. Garland has been visiting federal prosecutor’s offices across the country. To discuss community issues. (Eduardo Muñoz/Pool/AFP via Getty Images)
Attorney General Merrick Garland, who heads Biden’s Justice Department, has come under intense scrutiny over his handling of several investigations. Earlier this year, Garland pushed back against critics who accused the Justice Department of political bias.
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“Look, we have reaffirmed and clarified this Department of Justice code,” Garland responded. “We will follow the facts and the law wherever they lead us. Politics is not part of our decisions. It would be inappropriate, but it is not. The department has rules regarding the appointment of special prosecutors. There are rules and we follow them.”
He went on to say, “In every case, we have appointed a former veteran career prosecutor, whatever their current position.”
Fox News Digital has reached out to Kaufman and the Department of Justice for comment.
Fox News’ Alexander Hall and Aubrie Spady contributed reporting.
