Trump's push for admin 'fealty' is backfiring badly: Former federal prosecutor

29 July

Marco Rubio and Donald Trump

During his first presidency, Donald Trump bitterly clashed with many of his U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) appointees — including his first U.S. attorney general, Jeff Sessions (who he fired) and subsequent AG Bill Barr. Trump also turned against his appointee as FBI director, Christopher A. Wray.

But after returning to the White House on January 20, 2025, President Trump made sure that all of his DOJ appointees would be unwavering, unquestioning ultra-MAGA loyalists — including U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi, FBI Director Kash Patel, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche and Deputy FBI Director Dan Bongino.

In a scathing op-ed published by the New York Times on July 29, DOJ alumni and former federal prosecutor Daniel Richman — now a law professor at Columbia University in New York City — warns that having a DOJ filled with Trump loyalists is destroying the "credibility" of federal law enforcement. Richman laments that Bondi, Patel, Blanche and others "have shown a North Korean level of fealty to their leader."

"Ignoring norms of Justice Department independence from the White House," Richman explains, "they have jumped to follow his orders. They've announced investigations he demanded, seemingly regardless of whether there was support for doing so. They have moved to dismiss the cases that suited his political or personal purposes, regardless of the public interest. What is truly extraordinary, at least in recent times, has been their readiness to fire or otherwise push out agents and prosecutors, apparently for sins as minor as associating with Mr. Trump's critics and taking assignments to prosecute January 6 defendants."

The ex-DOJ prosecutor continues, "Numerous federal judges have raised concerns, to put it mildly, about the Trump Administration's readiness to put political expediency and presidential will above professionalism and adherence to the rule of law. Justice Department lawyers in every administration often find themselves fighting uphill battles in court to advance the president's political agenda."

Richman describes "Ms. Bondi's Justice Department and Mr. Patel’s FBI" as "organizations whose lawyers and agents have seen colleagues pushed out for the mere suspicion of insufficient loyalty" to Trump. And he cites the Jeffrey Epstein controversy as the latest example of the Trump-era DOJ's dysfunction.

"The Trump Justice Department needs someone with the credibility to tell the general public, 'Yes, there is some material that for legal reasons we cannot share, but really there's nothing to see here,'" Richman argues. "There will always be conspiracy theorists who would never believe the government. Many other Americans expect and want the truth from this Justice Department. The unavoidable problem for the Trump Administration is how it has poisoned the well it now wants to draw from."

Daniel Richman's full op-ed for the New York Times is available at this link (subscription required).

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