DOJ Official BREAKS SILENCE After Refusing Trump Order

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Mel Gibson wanted to bend the rule of law to get his firearms back, and when a DOJ prosecutor denied his request -she  says she was fired for following the law. Now, that former federal prosecutor has a warning ‼️ “we should all be terrified by the silencing of dissent,” within trump’s DOJ. Suri crowe reports.   Visit https://meidasplus.com for more!  MeidasTouch relies on SnapStream to record, watch, monitor, and clip the news. Get a FREE TRIAL of SnapStream by clicking here: https://go.snapstream.com/affiliate/meidastouch/meidasnews?utm_campaign=4490308-affiliate2025&utm_content=customerpartner  Support the MeidasTouch Network: https://patreon.com/meidastouch Add the MeidasTouch Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-meidastouch-podcast/id1510240831 Buy MeidasTouch Merch: https://store.meidastouch.com  Follow MeidasTouch on Twitter: https://twitter.com/meidastouch Follow MeidasTouch on Facebook: https://facebook.com/meidastouch Follow MeidasTouch on Instagram: https://instagram.com/meidastouch Follow MeidasTouch on TikTok: https://tiktok.com/@meidastouch

Transcript

00:00quote, defendant Christopher Joseph Quaglin was among the most violent of the January 6 rioters.

00:04He viciously assaulted numerous officers in this court, convicted him of six counts of assault,

00:09two counts of robbery, obstruction of the congressional certification vote,

00:13and other offenses. On at least a dozen occasions, he stood face to face with officers as he screamed

00:19at, pushed with outstretched arms, punched, swatted, and slapped officers, pushed bike racks

00:24into officers, and even choked one officer to the ground. He used his body as a battering ram

00:30and employed a stolen police riot shield against the officers in an attempt to force his way into

00:35the building. He sprayed several officers directly in the face with chemical irritant. He joined the

00:40collective mob pushes against the police line. In total, he was on Capitol grounds wreaking havoc

00:46for more than three hours due to his egregious criminal conduct on January 6, his refusal to

00:51accept responsibility and the need to deter him and others from further wrongdoing.

00:56The government recommends that the court sentence him to 168 months of incarceration.

01:03That sentencing memo was written from a, written by a Justice Department prosecutor whose name is

01:07Ashley Akers. And the Trump appointed judge who heard that case and considered that memo

01:13agreed and sentenced the defendant to a dozen years in prison just shy of what the prosecutors

01:18had asked for. Now, less than a year after that, he's out. And one of the last things Ashley Akers

01:28did as a prosecutor for the U.S. Department of Justice was submit filings to dismiss charges

01:33against defendants in cases she spent years building. Dismissed the charges because these

01:40people have been now pardoned by Donald Trump. I say that's one of the last things she did for

01:45the U.S. Justice Department because after more than seven years as a federal prosecutor

01:49and involvement in many January 6 cases, Ashley Akers left the U.S. Justice Department.

01:55Hi, my name is Sari Crow, and you're watching the Midas Touch Network.

01:59This is a report that I've been wanting to do actually for a while. And I was just reminded

02:03why Ashley Akers story is so important by yet another frightening development at Trump's

02:08Department of Justice. More on that in a minute. But first, more on Ms. Akers via Rachel Maddow.

02:14Did you want to leave? No, I suppose yes, because I left.

02:19But, you know, the circumstances came in a way that I didn't expect.

02:25Yeah. What is it like to have worked on so many of these January 6 cases? I understand that you

02:34may have had as many, if not more, January 6 trials as any prosecutor in the department.

02:41What is it like to have all of that work and all of those cases and all of those convictions and

02:47all of those sentences wiped away by the president? It was appalling, really. I think that the

02:54pardons that happened were disturbing. They were disturbing for a number of reasons. They

03:00were disturbing because it condones the violence that you just described and that the prosecutors

03:07on the team have been describing for years in court. It condones that. And this wasn't

03:11ordinary violence. As you described earlier, the police officers who were testifying in trials

03:17for years talked about this being the scariest day of their lives. They didn't know if they

03:22were going to come home. They talked about this being a medieval battle scene. And not only does

03:28it condone violence against those law enforcement officers, but it undermines the rule of law.

03:34And as judges in our court have continually repeated, that the cornerstone of our democracy

03:41is the peaceful transition of power from one administration to the next. And the crimes that

03:46were pardoned from January 6 were crimes that disrupted that peaceful transition of power.

03:52So Ms. Akers, a bright and shining star at the DOJ, after seven years as a federal prosecutor,

04:00painstakingly putting several of these January 6 cases together, getting convictions,

04:07had to resign from a job and a mission she loved because of the abject corruption of the Department

04:15of Justice under Trump. And the story that reminded me to go back and revisit Ms. Akers'

04:20tragic resignation, and there have been several more prosecutors who have resigned from DOJ

04:25under duress, was this story where a DOJ pardon attorney says she was fired when she refused to

04:34add actor and convicted felon Mel Gibson to a list that would have restored his gun rights.

04:40That attorney, Liz Oyer, explains to Chris Hayes at MSNBC.

04:45Was Mel Gibson one of those people that you had identified?

04:50He was not. Mel Gibson has never applied for any type of relief through my office,

04:54but we were able to identify 95 ordinary Americans who had applied for pardons, who had

05:01been waiting years to be considered for that relief and to have been extensively vetted.

05:07All of these folks had in common a number of things, including that their underlying

05:11crimes of conviction were nonviolent offenses. They were minor offenses. They were offenses

05:17that happened many, many years ago, in all cases, 20 plus years ago. And these are all

05:23individuals who had demonstrated by interviews with neighbors and employers and family members

05:28and others who know them that they have been outstanding citizens since the time of their

05:33conviction. Mel Gibson was not among those individuals who we identified.

05:38How does Mel Gibson enter the workflow?

05:40So what happened was I was asked to put together a memo for the attorney general summarizing the

05:47cases of nine of the 95 individuals that my colleagues and I had identified. They had

05:52whittled that 95 down to nine, and they asked me to write a memo to the attorney general

05:58recommending that these would be suitable candidates for her to grant this relief of

06:03restoring their firearm rights. And I was comfortable doing that with those cases because

06:08I had a great deal of information about those nine people. So Mel Gibson did not enter the

06:13equation until after I sent the initial draft of my memo to some officials within the office

06:19of the deputy attorney general. They received my memo and they sent it back to me with the

06:23direction, please add Mel Gibson to this recommendation.

06:27So here's the thing. Mel Gibson has a previous conviction for domestic violence going back to

06:322011. And according to his own attorney, had attempted to purchase a firearm in 2023,

06:39but was denied based on his criminal background, which is the way it should be. If you're a

06:45convicted felon, you should no longer be able to purchase firearms. But it would appear that Mr.

06:51Gibson, who is a good friend of Donald Trump's and hangs out with Kash Patel, thought he should just

06:56be able to skip over the laws. And when Ms. Oyer followed those laws, she apparently lost her job.

07:05Todd Blanche, who is the number two, I guess now at Department of Justice, has this to say about

07:10your account here, saying that former employees who violate their ethical duties by making false

07:15accusations on press tours will not be tolerated. I don't know what that means. This former employee's

07:19version of events is false. Her decisions to voice this erroneous accusation about her dismissals in

07:24direct violation of her ethical duties as an attorney is a shameful distraction from our

07:28critical mission to prosecute violent crime, enforce our nation's immigration laws and make

07:32America safe again. What do you say to that? Well, Chris, the reason that I'm here talking

07:37about this tonight is because what's going on inside the Department of Justice in terms of

07:42silencing dissent is so frightening that I felt like I needed to share this story after I was

07:48fired. And frankly, I think Mr. Blanche's statement really just proves my point. My ethical duty as a

07:55Department of Justice employee and now a former one is to the laws of the United States and the

08:02people that I was entrusted to serve. It is not to the bullies who are currently running the

08:07Department of Justice. We take an oath of office as Department of Justice employees and that oath

08:12says nothing about loyalty to the political administration or to the political leadership

08:18of the department. And frankly, I think that the position that Mr. Blanche is taking in his

08:24statement really just proves how terrified we should be about the current situation at the

08:30Department of Justice. Trump and his Project 2025 acolytes are hollowing out any semblance of law

08:37and order in the United States. They are gutting our institutions so that the authoritarian takeover

08:42can be completed. Here's another really sad example of that. When last week, the head of

08:47the New York City FBI office, FBI field office was also forced to resign to the New York field

08:54office. James Dennehy left his office for the last time on Thursday. We showed you some of this late

09:00yesterday to the sound of bagpipes and cheers. He says he was forced to retire after he pushed back

09:07against the Trump administration's demand that the FBI hand over the names of agents who worked

09:12on January 6 cases. Here's what he had to say to his former colleagues. There's a motto in the Marine

09:19Corps called Semper Fidelis. Semper Fidelis means always faithful. I'll always be faithful to this

09:28country, to this organization, and most of all, I will always be faithful to you. And I appreciate

09:34you being faithful to me, to this office, and more importantly, our mission. So thank you,

09:39and I will be your best cheerleader on the outside. I appreciate it.

09:47There's a woman in that video, probably several people, but one who is wiping away the tears from

09:52her eyes. And you can just see the profound love and devotion that Mr. Dennehy's fellow agents and

10:00employees have for this man. It just really gets me. And from everything I've read about Agent

10:06Dennehy, he is a solid stand-up guy. You wouldn't know where his political leanings lie because

10:11he is a professional by all accounts. A man who defended his fellow FBI agents from being targeted

10:18by an unhinged president who was hell-bent on revenge for those agents who were simply

10:25assigned to work on Trump's cases. Agent Dennehy is a hero, in my opinion, and certainly to those

10:32agents he protected by holding the line. As I was writing this story earlier today, I just had a

10:38really bad feeling in the pit of my stomach for all of the dedicated DOJ prosecutors who love

10:44justice more than they love the big money of the big law firms and agents like Mr. Dennehy and so

10:52many others whom you want defending your nation against the most evil people. And now we have

11:00crypto cash and completely unhinged Dan Bongino running or should I say destroying the FBI from

11:09the inside out. These are dark days in America. I mean, it is what it is. But I personally want to

11:19thank these public servants for their commitment to the rule of law and their professionalism

11:24and for what they have given to us as public servants. And I will just go ahead and quote

11:29former Agent Dennehy when he said it's time for me to dig in when he was protecting those

11:35agents that were under fire by Trump and his acolytes. And I would say the same for us.

11:42It's time for us to dig in. Dig in. I know that so many of us feel hopeless and paralyzed by the

11:52non-stop shit show that is going on. I read through comments on social media and I see so

11:58many people saying that they feel scared and afraid and paralyzed and that is what they want.

12:04That is what authoritarian regimes want. But I am asking you, and I understand because I have been

12:10down in that dark abyss myself, I am asking you to dig in and to lock arms with me and everyone else

12:16who is fighting for our freedoms and for our democracy, which is clearly on the precipice

12:24of disappearing, which is why we need to fight for it. Fight for it. It matters. It matters.

12:31It matters when we stand up and fight. You know, at their core, Donald Trump, Elon Musk,

12:37Mike Johnson, they are just freaking cowards. They are afraid of us. So, when we stand up and

12:45show our power and our solidarity, it matters. Look at Ukraine holding off the big bad Vlad.

12:53They've been doing that for years now. We can hold these guys off too. And I firmly believe

12:59that we can win. But we have to stick together. OK? And as I've been saying recently, remember

13:06that righteous anger is a good thing. We have the right to be pissed off. And I am certainly pissed

13:12off. And I am using my anger to channel into this channel and other work that I am doing.

13:18And I hope that you would join me in that too. So, thank you so much for watching. You can follow me

13:23on Instagram where I hang out a lot and put out a lot of content on Blue Sky and TikTok where I'm

13:28coming back to life. OK? I appreciate you guys being here and I hope to see you back here very soon.

13:33Peace. Can't get enough Midas? Check out the Midas Plus sub stack for ad-free articles,

13:38reports, podcasts, daily recaps from Ron Filipkowski and more. Sign up for free now at MidasPlus.com.

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