Dear Mr. Attorney General,
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From the WSJ:
Dear Mr. Attorney General,
Your time in office won’t run out a moment too soon. You will be remembered as a tool in the Democratic Party’s strategy of misusing the Justice Department to visit injustice on innocent people with differing political views. I am a victim of your dysfunctional leadership, but unlike many of your targets, I have survived unscathed.
I am 81. At the outset of my career, I enlisted in the U.S. Navy and served on active duty for two years, followed by an additional four in the reserves. When I returned to civilian life, I completed my undergraduate studies and law school. After some years of private practice, I successfully served as a prosecutor in three separate government offices.
I was then elected to Congress, where I served for 22 years. Shortly thereafter I created and ran the Livingston Group, a lobbying firm. For 25 years we represented defense, education, energy, health and corporate clients of all kinds. We also represented international clients, private and sovereign, but only if we were assured their interests coincided with those of the U.S.
In 2022 two Federal Bureau of Investigation agents came to my home in New Orleans and questioned me about incidents involving our representation of an international client in 2018. Having nothing to hide, I spoke with them for 2½ hours.
I told them everything I could remember. I told them the truth. They quibbled with me about facts and reminded me of incidents that for whatever reason I couldn’t recall. I have been interviewed by FBI agents in the past about varying matters under investigation, never about me, and I thought this no different. I was given to believe that they were looking only for background information.
At the end of the interview, the agents presented me with a search warrant for all my company’s records related to their questions. As the lead agent left, she thanked me for my service to the country. But as I read the search warrant, I realized that this meeting was neither benign nor simply for background. The next day, with my wife listening, I called the agent and asked directly: “Am I a target?” To my great shock, the agent said yes.
In all my years as a lobbyist, I have bent over backward to comply with the Foreign Agents Registration Act. My company has always filed reports pursuant to the law when we thought they were due. I have repeatedly told my clients that we must comply with FARA to avoid any possibility of transgressing the law. The company has employed a full-time officer to assure compliance.
Yet Justice Department prosecutors said on several occasions that I was the target of felony charges. Every day and night for 20 months, I lived with the possibility that the hammer could drop at any moment. Everything I worked for would be tarnished. My firm would collapse, my employees would lose their jobs, all of us would be ruined in the press, and I could go to prison.
The conduct of law enforcement was torturous. In January 2024, a prosecutor interviewed a member of my staff, using curse words and accusing her of lying. In December 2023 an FBI agent harassed our FARA compliance officer, David Lonie, who had been a congressional staffer on the House Rules Committee before working with us for many years.
Lonie was an honorable and decent man, the epitome of integrity and honor. The agent nevertheless told him that if he knew what was good for him, he would talk. Dave was scared to death. He went to bed on Dec. 31, 2023, and didn’t wake the next day. His family is devastated.
My company and I were innocent of all charges, and while I am pleased this Kafkaesque harassment is over, I am not content to simply shrug my shoulders and move on. We spent incredible amounts of money on legal counsel, more than three times what we earned by representing the client at issue. Our attorneys prepared an 88-page brief rebutting all charges. They succeeded in backing prosecutors down, but I am convinced the department’s actions were political and malicious, targeting me as a lobbyist who has supported Donald Trump and been critical of President Biden.
Under your leadership, Mr. Garland, the Justice Department has been guilty of lopsided enforcement. Hunter Biden was nearly given a sweetheart immunity deal following receipt of millions of dollars from foreign sources for which he didn’t file income tax returns or acknowledge his probable obligations under FARA. He was subsequently convicted for only a few of his crimes but has now been given a blanket pardon by his father. Members of the Trump administration and Mr. Trump himself have been hounded and arrested. They’ve had their lives ruined for minor white-collar infractions. Mr. Trump has prevailed over attempts to destroy him, but others have been less fortunate.
As for our case, as we detailed in our brief, a Democratic firm wasn’t as compliant regarding similar facts over a much longer period and to my knowledge was never investigated. If we had been charged and tried for six-year-old incidents despite our constant efforts to comply with the law, our case would have become additional evidence that you have led a department that has overtly ignored its obligation to provide justice.
The statute of limitations expired on our case in November, and prosecutors have said they are no longer interested in pursuing charges. That’s nice but hardly satisfactory. As a matter of justice, Mr. Garland, you owe us and the American people a profuse apology.
Mr. Livingston, a Republican, served as a U.S. representative from Louisiana, 1977-99.
