Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty hasn’t spoken publicly since the U.S. Department of Justice launched their investigation into her office back on Friday.

While at a Wednesday morning press conference on a different matter with families of victims in a deadly crash, Moriarty briefly addressed the DOJ investigation but took no questions, she said out of respect for the victims.

“Because it’s an open inquiry, we can’t comment on the DOJ investigation,” Moriarty said. “But we are fully confident that our policy complies with the law.”

The DOJ letter explained, “…the investigation will focus on whether the HCAO engages in the illegal consideration of race in its prosecutorial decision-making.”

The county attorney’s new policy in question requires prosecutors to consider the whole person, including their racial identity and age, when making plea deals.

“What we are not telling them to do is ‘Oh, because this person is of a particular race — treat them more harshly or leniently’ — that is not what this policy does at all,” Moriarty told 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS last week.

Moriarty said instead that the policy is focused on making sure prosecutors’ possible implicit bias doesn’t cloud their judgment.

“This policy is just asking our staff, to check themselves, and think about it coming from different directions, and just to make sure, you know, ’Would I be charging this case, with different demographics, would I be offering something different, with different demographics?’ that is simply what it asks our staff to do,” Moriarty said.

“If race, as we already know from the Supreme Court, can’t be a factor in college admissions, can’t be a factor in employment, can’t be a factor in hiring decisions, why should it be a factor in criminal charging decisions?” questioned former U.S. Attorney for Minnesota, Rachel Paulose.

Previously, Paulose worked in Washington, D.C., in the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, the same office that is investigating the County Attorney’s Office.

“This is an investigation, it’s not a lawsuit, it’s not a civil complaint, it’s not a criminal complaint,” Paulose explains what the DOJ will do next. “Begin requesting documents, requesting meetings, requesting information from Hennepin County, on what precisely the policy means.”

Paulose said the DOJ is looking to see if the policy violates the Constitution, including the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment.

When asked for a comment, a DOJ spokesperson wrote they had nothing at this time to add beyond what was shared in the letter.

The DOJ letter dated May 2 mentioned trying to set up a meeting with the County Attorney’s Office to discuss a timeline for the investigation.