Former United States Attorney General Alberto Gonzales speaks in Cookeville, Tennessee, United States (Image by Brian Stansberry/ Wikipedia Creative Commons.)
Former Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales penned a guest post for the Substack "Checks and Balances," lamenting the destruction of the Justice Department under President Donald Trump's administration.
The Republican from President George W. Bush's administration wrote that he'd always upheld the DOJ and those who worked there as a kind of "cathedral of justice." No longer, however, as it "is being dismantled stone by stone."
Many of the career lawyers at the Justice Department have either been fired, shoved out or quit very publicly under the leadership of former Trump lawyers Todd Blanche, Emil Bove and Pam Bondi.
"Prosecutors appear to no longer enjoy prosecutorial independence," he said as an example. "Prosecutions at the federal district level against perceived political or personal enemies of the administration’s leadership are, in many cases, now directed by senior leaders at the Department or by subordinates at the White House."
This only adds to Trump's assault on law firms. He issued an executive order last year, giving him the legal authority to personally target the firms he didn't like. While many ran scared, there are still several fighting back.
Then there is the "politically motivated criticism of our judges, as well as threats to their families," which he wrote "threaten to undermine the independence of the courts. Recently, it was reported that leaders in the various 93 US offices were told to provide DOJ headquarters with examples of perceived judicial activism that would serve as the basis for referral to the House of Representatives for possible impeachment proceedings. There are growing complaints about executive branch defiance of court orders."
It's proof that prosecutions are coming not from a striving for justice but from politics, he said. However, most of them "have all failed to an embarrassing level."
Like many, he wants to see norms reestablished and a return to the rule of law. But he remains fearful about the "pace at which norms and traditions are being abandoned." He called it outright "dangerous." He lamented that it will likely take "time and hard work" to rebuild the DOJ once Trump is finished with it.