In early July, The New York Times reported on the Justice Department’s so-called Weaponization Working Group hiring a former FBI agent named Jared Wise. The name was probably unfamiliar to most Americans, but Wise’s record made him a ridiculous choice for a position in the DOJ: He was a Jan. 6 rioter who was accused of encouraging the insurrectionist mob to kill police officers.
The existence of the Weaponization Working Group is its own absurdity, but adding a rioter to its ranks made matters vastly worse.
This week, NPR advanced the story with video evidence.
NPR has obtained police bodycam footage from multiple angles of the former defendant and current administration official, Jared Wise, berating officers and calling them ‘Nazi’ and ‘Gestapo.’ NPR located the footage, which has not previously been published, in a review of thousands of court exhibits from Jan. 6 criminal cases, obtained through legal action by a coalition of media organizations. The Department of Justice had introduced the footage as an exhibit in Wise’s trial.
While MSNBC and NBC News have not independently verified the bodycam footage, NPR also obtained a transcript of Wise’s testimony, in which he acknowledged that he repeatedly yelled “kill ‘em” as officers were being attacked.
He was later seen celebrating after breaching the Capitol.
Prosecutors didn’t have time to proceed with his criminal case before Donald Trump started handing out pardons to rioters, including violent felons who clashed with police officers.
The Times’ report from last month explained that Wise’s new role within the Justice Department was “a remarkable development,” because it meant “that a man who had urged violence against police officers was now responsible for the department’s official effort to exact revenge against those who had tried to hold the rioters accountable.”
But when the newspaper first reported on this in early July, the DOJ did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Now, a month later, however, a Department of Justice spokesperson said in a statement to NPR, “Jared Wise is a valued member of the Justice Department and we appreciate his contributions to our team.”
And this is what takes this story to a different level.
In a normal and healthy political environment, there would be a straightforward response from federal law enforcement in a situation like this. Reporters would ask for a comment, and the DOJ would respond, “The Department of Justice does not tolerate those who advocate violence against police officers. Wise is no longer employed by this administration, which can be counted on to ‘back the blue.’” Except that’s not even close to what the DOJ actually said. Reminded that it hired a man who was apparently captured on video urging rioters to “kill” cops, a Trump administration official instead said, in writing, “Jared Wise is a valued member of the Justice Department and we appreciate his contributions to our team.” In other words, Justice Department officials are well aware of Wise’s record, but they don’t much care. The next time Republicans try to pretend that the president and his team are allies of law enforcement, keep this in mind. This post updates our related earlier coverage.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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