Ex-federal prosecutors shocked by Trump’s 'breathtaking weaponization of DOJ'

U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi and U.S. President Donald Trump in the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., October 15, 2025. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

During his first presidency, Donald Trump bitterly clashed with two conservative U.S. attorneys general he appointed: first Jeff Sessions, then Bill Barr — who drew a lot of criticism from Democrats for his handling of the Robert Mueller Report but infuriated Trump by refusing to go along with his efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election results. However, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi, critics say, is crossing lines that Sessions and Barr wouldn't have dared to cross by using the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) as a tool of retaliation against Trump's foes.

In an article published on March 5, The Guardian's Peter Stone details the way in which Trump and Bondi are encouraging DOJ's rapid "politicization."

University of Michigan law professor and former federal prosecutor Barbara McQuade, a frequent legal analyst for MS NOW, told the Guardian, "The weaponization of the DOJ has been truly breathtaking. They are looking for crimes to pin on their political rivals. Investigations against (U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman) Jerome Powell, (Minnesota Gov.) Tim Walz and others seem to be efforts to intimidate them into submission. DOJ prohibits this kind of fishing expeditions to smear people without factual predication that a crime has been committed."

McQuade's "points," according to Stone, are "underscored" by an FBI search of an elections office in Fulton County, Georgia.

"The FBI raid followed a DOJ lawsuit against Fulton County in December seeking to obtain records, including ballot stubs and signature envelopes from the 2020 election," Stone notes. "Despite lacking clear legal authority, Bondi has sued 30 states, including five on 26 February, seeking their voter registration lists, which contain personal information, in moves that seem to overlap with Trump's bogus accusations of widespread voting fraud in many states…. In a blunt and revealing memo last February, Bondi wrote that all DOJ employees must 'zealously advance, protect and defend' the interests of Trump in his role as the nation's chief executive."

Conservative Donald Ayer, who served as deputy U.S. attorney general under the late GOP President George H.W. Bush, told The Guardian, "The president's scowling face over the door is a constant reminder of all that he has done to dismantle the Justice Department as the trusted custodian of fair and evenhanded justice."

Another DOJ alumni interviewed by The Guardian is Randall Eliason, now a George Washington University law professor.

Ex-federal prosecutor Eliason told the publication, "Trump has succeeded in completely politicizing the Justice Department. This Justice Department has been transformed into a political wing of the Trump Administration, using the power of the justice system to punish Trump's enemies and reward his friends with little regard for the law. Some say he has turned it into his own personal law firm, but that's too generous — even a law firm generally would follow legal rules, obey court orders and not bring frivolous cases."

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