Why are the first days of Trump’s Department of Justice, they look so incredibly dangerous?

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Historically, the Department of Justice has been understood by the Democratic and Republican Administrations such as serving people, not the President. Like Ted Olson, Ronald Reagan’s main legal advisor, wrote in a memo For the Attorney General in 1982, justice is “accused of ensuring that the Executive Power observes the constitutional limits and that the laws promulgated by Congress are executed faithfully.”

Clearly, that is not what Donald Trump’s new attorney, Pam Bondi, has in mind.

She It will not be The first leader of the Department of Justice to serve as a nearby ally of the president who appointed them. But the shameless and the speed with which he showed his intention to make the president’s offers is not preceded.

The first attorney general, Edmund Randolph, was The confidant and close political ally of President George Washington. Among then and now, the presidents, from time to time, have appointed friends and supporters to be general prosecutors. They even chose campaign managers or those of their party National President to be the United States Attorney General.

As Kris Olson, former US prosecutor of the district of Oregon, wrote In 2019, once in office, the general prosecutors, whether or not they were the president’s budins, have “faced the political pressure and/or chronicle in the White House.” They have responded, observes Olson, “markedly differently. … your reactions range from capitulation to confrontation and almost everything else. “

Olson offers the example of Janet Reno, who served as Bill Clinton’s attorney from 1993 to 2001, as someone who insisted on the independence of the Department of Justice and refused to use the department to help Clinton or protect him. The most revealing, Olson writes, “was the authorization of Reno of more than a dozen special prosecutors to investigate the accusations of illegal activity by the president, his wife and his cabinet.”

One day 1, Bondi Attorney General, who He had demonstrated his loyalty to President Trump By serving as a defense lawyer in his first political trial and helping in his efforts to cancel the results of the 2020 elections, he notified that he would not follow in reindeer’s footsteps. While denouncing what she and the president falsely labeled As a weapon of the Department of Justice, he showed what the department’s real weapon would be like.

She didn’t waste time by putting Commitments he made during his confirmation hearings In the rearview mirror and Putting the Department of Justice into account that during his mandate, he will serve Trump’s partisan agenda. She made it clear that she would build on what Interim Attorney James Mchenry made on January 27 When he moved “to fire several officials of the Department of Justice who worked in the federal criminal investigations of President Trump” because one could not “trust that they faithfully implement the president’s agenda due to his important role in the president’s prosecution.”

Bondi He did it in a memorandum entitled “General Policy regarding jealous defense on behalf of the United States.” In that memorandum, the Attorney General wrote: “The responsibilities of the lawyers of the Department of Justice include not only aggressively enforced criminal and civil laws promulgated by Congress, but also vigorously defend presidential policies and actions against legal challenges in Name of the United States “.

She explained that, in her opinion, “the discretion offered the lawyers of the department confident of these responsibilities does not include latitude to replace personal political opinions or judgments that prevailed in the elections. When the lawyers of the Department of Justice, for example, refuse to advance in the arguments of good faith reducing the Court or signing reports, undermines the constitutional order and deprives the president of the benefit of their lawyers. “

And if they do not, Bondi reminded their subordinates, “they will be subject to discipline and potentially termination.”

What could be a better evidence of the Department of Justice to tell Line prosecutors that their work is to defend “presidential actions and policies” and follow the opinions that “prevailed in the elections”, and that they must consider themselves as the president’s lawyers. ?

What Bondi is asking the prosecutors who do put them in a very difficult position. As teachers Bruce A. Green and Rebecca Roiphe explain“The President has no constitutional or legal authority to control federal criminal prosecutions.”

They are right to argue that if federal prosecutors follow the president’s orders or see themselves as agents of his agenda, “they will violate ethical rules and professional standards.”

When the Congress created the Department of Justice in 1870, “it was not too worried that partisan policy infiltrated and undermine the rule of law, because … the experience, including professional norms for lawyers, the final protection against partisan corruption, “Green and Roiphee notice. “The American democratic discourse has included the value of independent prosecutions since its inception.”

What Bondi did Wednesday was a dramatic deviation of the traditions mentioned by Green and Roiphe. In addition, she turned the rules referred to in her head.

Another of its directives on day 1 turned the weapon of a set of general addresses to prosecutors in a specific incarnation of Trump’s promise to put back in the center of the agenda of his administration.

Titled, with Orwellian irony, “restoring the integrity and credibility of the Department of Justice”, this memorandum established “the weapons work group.” His position is “to review the activities of all departments and agencies that exercise the authority of civil or criminal application of the United States in the last four years … to identify cases in which the conduct of an department or agency seems have been designed to achieve political objectives or other incorrect objectives instead of pursuing justice or legitimate governmental objectives. “

The four -year period shows a clear intention to focus on people who sought to legally hold Trump for the crimes he could have committed. And, without leaving anything to the imagination, Bondi orders his new working group to examine the activities of former special lawyer Jack Smith, Manhattan district prosecutor, Alvin Bragg, New York Attorney General, Letitia James, and “and“ and “ The prosecutions related to events in or near the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021. “

Bondi even promised that “the Department of Justice will provide quarterly reports to the White House regarding the progress of the review.”

Game, set, game! At once, Bondi turned Trump’s desire to investigate those who investigated him in the policy of the Department of Justice. The fact that he did it before the ink was dry in his appointment certificate shows how anxious he is to show fidelity to the man who appointed her.

In 1977, when he left the Department of Justice, Attorney General Edward Levi warned His colleagues of the arduous work that is always necessary to resist political invasions in their work. He said: “Our law is not an instrument of partisan purpose,” and proudly proclaimed: “We have shown that the administration of justice can be fair, it can be effective, it can be non -partisan.”

These goals, said Levi, “can never be won forever. They must always win again.”

On day 1, Pam Bondi announced to the world that he was renouncing that effort. It is a tragedy for people working for the Department of Justice and everything Americans.