Ever since United States President Donald Trump took over, there have been tons of changes that happened, no just within the White House but also to his administration. Just like what happens with the Department of Education last year, Secretary Betsy DeVos decided to remove not just 1 but 70 documents regarding the rights of students who are living with disabilities.
People weren’t too happy about this but it doesn’t end there, just earlier this year the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services decided to remove the phrase “a nation of immigrants” when referring to America. Another major change was when Secretary Ben Carson got rid of the anti-discrimination language as well as the promise on their mission to provide “quality affordable homes for all” at the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Because of all of these changes comedienne Michelle Wolf took the chance of making some comments towards the current administration, when she was invited at the White House Correspondents Dinner last weekend, wherein she actually roasted some White House officials including White House press secretary Sarah Sanders, who was representing the president since he decided not to show up again. However, despite the savage comments that the comedienne made, this didn’t stop the Justice Department to make changes on their manual for the federal prosecutors, continue reading to find out more about it.
Jeff Sessions with US President Donald Trump
Justice Department Scraping
For months now, the Department of Justice has been working on overhauling their manual. One of the most notable parts that they have decided to change was to create a section that would require a need for a free public and press trial. The said manual is actually used not just lawyers all over the country, but also federal prosecutors so technically, it will definitely make a huge change.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions have already reviewed some of the first major changes and based on a report from Buzzfeed, the all new and revised version actually lost most of its references when it comes to the Justice Departments work against racial gerrymandering, which is basically the segregation of voters base on which race they are from. The updated version also mentioned having the power to cut down the limitations when it comes to prosecutorial power. However, it added a specific section that could be used to prevent leaks to the public.
Prosecutors manual still being revised
Delete, Revise, Update
This particular manual which is pretty much used by lawyers and prosecutors all over the United States features not only the things that they can or can’t do but also the high-level statements wherein it is indicated what kind of policies they must follow as well as what are the things they must prioritize in a case. This wasn’t the very first time that the manual was updated, the last time it was revised was back in 1997.
However, according to Department of Justice’s spokesman Ian Prior, Attorney General Rod Rosenstein actually orders that the said manual must be reviewed from top to bottom. Last March, it was actually announced that there will be changes in some of the policies when it comes to the anti-corruption laws since some prosecutors do not seem to keep track of the policy. One of the earliest changes was back in January wherein the Respect for Religious Liberty was indicated. The President even signed an executive order not too long ago on the National Prayer Day.
However, not every change in the manual has been announced to the public, which is something that the DOJ normally does when there is a change. This was even confirmed by former prosecutors. It is expected though that every attorney office in the country will receive a message and will be notified what are the changes that have been made and once the revision and update are done, they will, of course, be notified again. The Department of Justice refused to make any more comments regarding the manual change.
According to Prior, one of the goals of the revision is to remove any redundancy on its sections and are trying to make some of its areas more clear so that the prosecutors, as well as the lawyers, will be able to perform their job better. The manual is actually in the midst of revision despite the fact that there are still some officials who haven’t been confirmed on their specific positions.