U.S. President Donald Trump with federal prosecutor Jeanine Pirro, May 28, 2025, in the White House Oval Office. (Official White House Photo by Joyce N. Boghosian/Flickr)
During Donald Trump's first presidency, he angrily clashed with conservative Republicans he appointed to the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) — including two attorneys general: Jeff Sessions and Bill Barr. And even though Christopher A. Wray was Trump's appointee to replace fired FBI Director James Comey, he later turned against him in a big way. Wray resigned near the end of Joe Biden's presidency, as he knew Trump would fire him after returning to the White House.
Trump, however, has handled DOJ and the FBI much differently during his second presidency, appointing far-right MAGA loyalists like U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi, FBI Director Kash Patel, Deputy U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche, and federal prosecutor Jeanine Pirro.
In an article published by Politico on March 23, a DOJ alumni — former federal prosecutor Ankush Khardori — stresses that DOJ has taken a turn for the worse during Trump's second presidency but reports that the president's critics have ideas for repairing the agency in the future.
"Thousands of lawyers have left the department since last year, and many of them have watched in dismay as Bondi, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche and the rest of the department's current leadership have severely curtailed critical department functions — in the areas of national security, public corruption, white-collar crime, civil rights enforcement and more — while shifting resources to a highly unpopular immigration enforcement agenda and regularly berating federal judges, members of Congress, the media and even the private defense bar," Khardori explains. "With nearly three years left in Trump's term, it is hard to say how much worse things will get, but we are likely to find out the hard way. Fortunately, people are already thinking about the future."
One of them is Vanita Gupta, who headed DOJ's Civil Rights Division under former President Barack Obama.
Gupta told Politico, "Former DOJ career employees and political appointees — from Republican and Democratic administrations — are deeply disturbed by what they are seeing and are invested in thinking through what rebuilding the department looks like. This includes how to restore and strengthen the career workforce and its expertise, the national security infrastructure, and the Civil Rights Division; how to reestablish DOJ's independence from political interference in criminal enforcement; and what policies, norms, and operational changes might be necessary to build a Department that is more effective, more resilient against abuse and corruption, and more trusted by the American people. It is not too soon to start these conversations given what's been happening."
Stacey Young, a former DOJ litigator, believes the U.S. is "in the middle of a full-scale assault on the Justice Department."
Young told Politico, "Restoring what we've lost and ensuring the department is more durable than it was will be essential, and it will require far more time and imagination than it’s taken to tear it down."