'Losing their minds': Fear of second Trump presidency 'most acute' at DOJ

10 November 2024

While Republican lawmakers celebrate Donald Trump's win over Kamala Harris, "alarm" over the ex-president's "return is widespread throughout the federal bureaucracy," according to a Sunday Politico report.

However, fear over what a second Trump presidency might bring is "most acute" at the Department of Justice, Politico reports, "which was at the center of many of the major controversies of his first term."

A DOJ attorney told the news outlet, "Everyone I’ve talked to, mostly lawyers, are losing their minds. The fear is that career leadership and career employees everywhere are either going to leave or they’re going to be driven out."

Politico notes:

Critics believed the Trump White House meddled in some of the department’s high-profile prosecutions. Both of Trump’s attorneys general, Jeff Sessions and William Barr, eventually lost the president’s confidence. And his first term ended with a stunning showdown between Trump and nearly all of his DOJ appointees as they resisted his attempts to cling to power.

Now, DOJ officials worry the president-elect will take revenge, and that many longtime staffers could lose their jobs.

"Many federal employees are terrified that we’ll be replaced with partisan loyalists — not just because our jobs are on the line, but because we know that our democracy and country depend on a government supported by a merit-based, apolitical civil service,” DOJ trial attorney Stacey Young told Politico.

An ex-DOJ official who served under Trump told the news outlet, "We’ve all seen this movie before and it’s going to be worse. It will be worse. It’s just a question of how much worse it’s going to be."

Politico's full report is available at this link.

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