Item three of this cycle's species review concerns Washington, where agents of the United States federal government searched the residence of Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, a Democratic legislator and outspoken opponent of President Trump. Justice Department officials described the operation as "part of an ongoing federal investigation." The desk assessed the operation against its stated purpose and files two findings. A third finding was drafted and is also ongoing.
Finding one: the search functioned as designed. The declared function is investigative. The observed sequence runs as follows: a legislator produces sustained public opposition to the chief executive; federal agents arrive at her home; officials announce the event in a statement of six words — the desk counted twice — none of which is a reason. Distributing that statement to reporters is not required by an investigation. It is required by a design, and the design, unlike the statement, runs long.
Finding two concerns the modifier "ongoing." An ongoing investigation has no scheduled conclusion; it is a condition, not a task. A search conducted inside such a condition is therefore simultaneously premature and punctual. The Congresswoman has been placed on what locals call a waiting list — the queue of the queue — where persons wait for an investigation to finish being ongoing. Priority is assigned by freshness of grievance; eight years of opposition files under "recent." Field teams requested the subject of the investigation. The request was returned on Form O-1, Continuation of Ongoing-ness, marked "ongoing," underlined by hand.
"The Department does not select critics," said Randall Feck, the Justice Department's Deputy Director of Public Communications. "It selects addresses. Critics occupy addresses at elevated rates — we track the rate quarterly, which is why the form has a back. We do not comment on the correlation, because the correlation is the file."
"The President respects the independence of the Justice Department completely," said Marjorie Kellett, Deputy Assistant to the President for Legislative Affairs. "He announces his concerns, and the Department, independently, adopts them. Occasionally it adopts them first, to save the independence for later. Two offices, one conclusion. That is what independence means here."
Recurrence risk is rated certain. The remediation plan is the same procedure, administered again, at the next address where criticism is stored. The remediation deadline is recorded as the conclusion of the ongoing investigation; the Department supplied no date, and the log accepted "ongoing" in the field, where it joins the other permanent entries. The finding, like the search, is functioning as designed.
