Over the past months, we’ve examined several cabinet-level departments and their performance against mission. Our examination of operational components inside the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) focused primarily on U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP). In the coming months, we’ll be looking closely at the cabinet-level Departments of Defense and State – given the recent declarations of military action in South America and Iran – and then look at other key DHS operational components like the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA).
This month, I’d like to focus on the Department of Justice (DOJ). Like the cabinet departments noted above, the administration’s early efforts were to purge the DOJ of its most experienced senior lawyers and try to reset the tone of operations to carry out explicit orders from the president. Whether lawyers were professionals rather than partisans was figured largely in who was let go and who stayed. This first strategic move, straight out of the 2025 playbook, decimated the independent role that Justice has had where presidents are concerned, and turned the department into executing work dictated by political concerns that included the shakedown of large law firms (“Trump’s Persistent Humiliation of Elite Law Firms”); the bumbling release of the Epstein papers to fulfill a presidential promise; the prosecution of the former FBI director James Comey and New York Attorney General Leticia James for clearly vindictive reasons; and the prosecution of six members of Congress–all former security and/or military experts–for producing a video reminding the military that they were not obliged to follow illegal orders. Our federal grand jury system worked in each of these attempted prosecutions by finding no grounds to prosecute.
Established on June 22, 1870, the DOJ was created 81 years after the Office of the Attorney General (OAG) of the United States was established in 1789. Its original mandate was “to centralize federal law enforcement, manage the surge in post-Civil War litigation, and enforce13th, 14th, and 15th Amendment rights.” In its excellent history, the Library of Congress blog shows the evolution of the department and its growth.
“Over the almost 150 years of its existence, the department’s role has greatly expanded…The department took on the litigating of the government’s position in a number of policy issues such as civil rights, antitrust, and the environment. The department’s role in criminal law has also expanded. A separate Criminal Division provides support for the prosecution of defendants in federal courts. In addition, the department oversees the Federal Bureau of Investigation and a number of related law enforcement agencies.”
We are at a historic inflection point at which the Justice Department's independence to investigate and recommend (and, in some cases, monitor) outcomes has been seriously compromised. Witness the cases tossed out against President Trump by the current Attorney General and the disrespectful and careless relationships with Congress. Cutting deals that involve fines to be paid, or hours to be donated, or improved prison facilities is now the norm. Loyalty is to the president, not the Constitution.
When the president was overruled by the Supreme Court for usurping the tariff powers of the legislative branch, we saw how petulant and determined he became, and we have to wonder whether the tariffs collected have even been isolated and identified in the administration’s accounts so they can be returned. As more political threats appear on the horizon, the president becomes increasingly cruel, angry that voters cannot see how much he is doing for the country. In the coming months, we can expect him to bear down on VOTE, establish complex rules for voting in the midterm, and largely eliminate mail-in voting. It is the Justice Department that has already been trying to gather state lists of voter rolls and who will be charged with enforcing whatever changes he is able to effect.
The gravity of these changes cannot be underestimated. In sum, they represent an obvious assault, not just on persons, but on the very basis of the constitutional rule of law. There is no adequate precedent for this. It effectively puts the president above the law: not the postulated “Unitary Executive” but simply the lawless presidency.