When Donald Trump took power, he promised retribution against his political opponents. Now he's delivering, and he's using the Justice Department to do it, with the US Attorney launching a two count indictment against former FBI director James Come last week.
And it seems like that's just the beginning, not a.
Less But I think there'll be others. I mean they're corrupt. These were corrupt, radical up democrat.
The Justice Department has also been directed to investigate the Open Society Foundations, a group funded by the billionaire George Soros.
I'm Ruby Jones, and you're listening to.
Seven AM today former Human Rights Watch director and federal prosecutor Kenneth Roth on how Trump is eroding checks on presidential power and the chilling effect it could have. It's Tuesday, September thirty. So kenn Of, thank you so much for speaking with me today. To begin with, you have known George Soros for decades.
Can you tell me a bit about him and the work that you've done with him.
Well, I met him, I mean literally more than three decades ago, when Human Rights Watch was a tiny organization. This was early in his philanthropy and he was really just exploring how we could make a difference. And you know, we all know that his defense of human rights was a huge part of his philanthropy. These were the earliest days and he was just figuring it out. He grew up as a young Jewish boy in Hungary under the Nazis,
and essentially his father saved the family. His father was able to kind of maneuver get false documentation and ultimately get the family out. So Sorrows grew up with a deep appreciation of the evil the governments could do. But you know, George Soros is known foremost for his financee and seeing of small human rights pro democracy organizations. More broadly,
civil society. He really got started while the Soviet Union still dominated Eastern Europe, and then with the fall of the Soviet Union, he helped actively promote civil society in the post Soviet countries, but then more broadly around the world. And his idea was that you really needed to build
democracy from the bottom up. So he invested in education, in journalism in various areas that would build a vibrant civil society, and he felt that that was the best foundation in which democracy could clourish.
And late last week, the New York Times reported that one of Trump's senior Justice Department officials has ordered an investigation into the foundation that Soros started, so Open Society Foundations, what are they saying about why they are doing that?
Well? This was sparked by the assassination of Charlie Kirk, which was very truma for people across the United States, but particularly a lot of Trump's followers, and they were quick to blame this on progressive groups that they say promoted violence.
These are professional agitators. These are bad people, and they've paid a lot of money by rich people, some of whom we know. I'm sure I know.
So you know. Trump had named this group antifa, which is a group that doesn't even exist. It's an anti fascist name. But he very quickly identified Sorows and the Open Society Foundations as a supposed promoter of political violence antifas well.
Soros is the name certainly that I keep hearing.
I don't know, but Soros is the.
Name that I hear.
I hear a lot of different names.
I hear names of some pretty rich people that are radical love people.
Trump's Justice Department is citing something called the Capital Research Center, which seems to be some right wing group that is put together this lengthy report looking at Soros grantees, and it is filled with tangentious MacCarthy I had language making these facile claims of political violence or support for terrorism, which then in turn Sorrow's supposedly funded. Now this is crazy. This is like the opposite of a Soro stands where
he's always promoted peaceful debate. You know, I've known the guy for more than three decades. I've never seen a hint of him being pro violence in any way. His funding doesn't go in that direction. But Soros has always been a bogeyman for the far right.
And one of the examples that was given as to why Open Society Foundations needs to be investigated was this group, Al Hack, a group that the Foundation funds.
Can you tell me a bit about them?
Yes, I mean Al Hak is a group that I have worked with literally for decades. It is the leading Palestinian human rights group. It's based in Ramala in the Occupied West Bank, and it is among the world's top human rights organizations in terms of the solidity of its methodology.
It does very accurate, detailed investigations in difficult circumstances because the Israeli government is doing everything it can to block these kinds of investigations, but all Hak has field researchers, both in the occupied West Bank and in Gaza, who record Israeli abuse. Now, in twenty twenty one, the Israeli government actually tarred Al Hac and five other Palestinian simple society groups as supposed terrorists. Ironically, they didn't do anything
with it. They say you're a terrorist, but Al Hawk still operates today, so they didn't entirely mean it. They just used it to try to delegitimize the organization. And Trump is now seized on that to say, aha, you know, George Soros funded Al Haak. Al Haak is a terrorist group, therefore George Soros must promote political violence. I mean, it's that kind of false logic that is behind the nothingness
in these threats against sorrows. And I think because the values that he promotes are antithetical to what an autocrat wants. You know, autocrat wants to have a monopoly. And what's understood is the truth. That's certainly Trump, who surrounds himself with sycophans, who doesn't like anybody to criticize him, and
that's the opposite of George Soros. And so if you're going to go after somebody who really represents the kind of vibrant, free debate that terrifies an autocrat, you go after George Soros.
Coming up, how Donald Trump went after James Comy. Trump is currently targeting several perceived enemies. Last week there was the former FBI director James Comey, who was indicted on Trump's directions. So tell me a bit about how Trump is doing this.
Well, me, prosecution is interesting because it just breaks all the rules. And I see in this as a former federal prosecutor myself. I spent four and a half years in New York and also Washington as a prosecutor before I went to Human Rights Watch. And prosecutors know that they are supposed to follow the facts, follow the laws. They're supposed to be independent of the president. And it's just not done that the president would order the prosecution
of this or that person. That breaches every tradition of an independent prosecutoral authority that exists in the United States. But Trump has now, in the case of Komy, pressed for prosecution of him for a statement he made five years ago in testifying before Congress. It was such an ambiguous statement, It was so unclear that it was even false, which is what they're alleging, that the professional prosecutors refuse to bring the charges.
They are sick, radical left people and they can't get away with it. They told me to me was one of the people. He wasn't the biggest, but he's a dirty cop. He's always been a dirty cop. Everybody do it.
And so Trump put in one of his former lawyers who had never handled a criminal case in her life, and you know, within just a handful of days of the statute limitations ending, she convinced a grandjury to bring perjury charges against Kmy.
My family and I have known for years that there are costs to standing up to Donald Trump, but we couldn't imagine ourselves living any other way. We will not live on our knees, and you shouldn't either.
So this is, you know, just an utter flouting of the basic norms of justice. But it shows that Trump is allowing his personal mendettas to proceed before everything else. Because Comy was, you know, a man he hates. Because Comy looked into the original allegations that the Russians manipulated and helped to secure Trump's first electoral win for presidency.
So just how much is what we're seeing now a departure from what we have in the past and should expect in democracies where there is supposed to be independence between politicians and the legal system.
Well, I should say, I mean, the American system is a bit different. Prosecutors do report to the Attorney General, who is a cabinet official who is appointed by the president, and so as a legal matter, the president does have the authority to order prosecutors to do things. It's just not done. You know, never before have presidents exercised this technical legal authority. They've always abided by the norms that insist on on restraint and allowing prosecutors to do their job.
I mean, when I was a prosecutor, I never ever got an order from above. It was understood that I would just look at the facts, I would look at the law, I would make independent judgments about what I thought was the right thing to do, and that's how prosecutors operate. Suddenly Trump is breaking those rules and the White House deciding who gets prosecuted and who not, Which is you know, incredibly dangerous because you know, Trump is a very vindictive man, and he could just go after
anybody for anything. But you know, what I'm seeing right now is a chilling effect. You know, for example, we're seeing this around the International Criminal Court, which Trump has imposed sanctions on because it had the audacity to charge Israeli Prime Minister in Natanyahu and former Defense Minister Gland for the war prime of starving Palestinian civilians in Gaza. And because of these sanctions, a number of human rightscrips
are now worried. You know, what happens if we provide investigative assistance to the court, What if we give them our report about what Israel has done? You know, might this get US prosecutor might this get us sanctions? So I think that, you know, it's really that chilling effect that is the principal consequence. Man. Right now, we haven't yet seen you know, actual prosecutions. It's more threats of prosecutions.
But as we've seen the James Company, the traditional restraint that presidents have shown not to meddle in prosecutor early matters, it's just not there with Trump. So we have to expect the worst. You know, He's just not going to abide by any tradition. And if he has the legal authority to order somebody to order a prosecutor to pursue some enemy, he's going to do it.
How worried are you about what this all says about whether US is heading Well, what worries me is.
That Trump is really implementing the autocrat's handbook. All the autocrats do the same thing, which is to say, they try to undercut the checks and balances on their executive power. And you know, Trump has done this already by you know, attacking judges, by attacking members of Congress. He's gotten a number of media organizations to pay you know, multimillion dollar
fines to him and to cut deals. A number of universities, you know, Columbia University, for example, has has cut a deal costing them, you know, hundreds of millions of dollars and subjecting them to ongoing over site by the government. He's gone after law firms, and a number of the law firms have been forced to cut deals otherwise they would, you know, lose access to federal premises and the ability
to represent their clients. And so, having gone through you know a number of these classic checks on the executive he's now turning to civil side. But you know, for everybody who capitulates, there are others who fight back. So the good news is that, you know, unlike say, the law firms in the United States, some of which you know, broke ranks, had tried to cut deals with Trump, the
Progressive Foundations have banded together. They put out a statement about a week ago saying, you know, we're not going to subject or so, We're not going to submit to Trump's divide and conquer strategy. We're going to mount a common defense and if he comes after any of us, we're all going to come to the assistance. And you know, the other I guess good news is that he makes mistakes. You know, he surrounds himself by singafanns, they don't question him.
He overreaches periodically, and so this is not the best conceived plan, but it nonetheless is an autocratic path along which Trump is traveling. I hope he gets stopped before he gets to the end. I think he will. But this is going to be about.
Well, can I thank you so much for your time, thank you for having me.
Also in the news today, Optus is investigating another failure of its Triple zero system, the second in ten days. The company said nine calls to Triple zero failed between three am and twelve twenty pm on Sunday near Wollongong and the New South Wales South Coast. All callers who attempted to reach the emergency number are reportedly okay. Federal Government Services Minister Katie Gallagher says the failure is disappointing, while consumer groups have renewed calls for the government to
appoint an independent expert to monitor the system. To find out more about the government's role in this listen to our episode Labour's guilt in the Optus failure. It's in our feed now and the Federal government will pay an American private prisons operator one hundred and fifty seven million dollars a year to run Australia's offshore Processing center in Naru,
after granting a two year extension to the company. MTC Australia is a subsidiary of US based Management and Training Corporation, which runs hundreds of for profit prisons in the US and UK. With one hundred and five people being held on Naru. Australian taxpayers will now pay one point five million dollars.
Per detainee per year.
MTC has been subject to several civil suits in the US relating to security failures and gross negligence.
I'm Ruby Jones. This is seven am. See you tomorrow