Donald Trump's attorney general – Pam Bondi, if she's confirmed – will report for duty with a pile of work stacking up on her desk.
The newly elected president has signed a blizzard of executive orders since he was sworn in Monday afternoon, and a common theme has emerged over and over tasking his Justice Department with investigating and enforcing his personal policy wishes, reported the Washington Post.
“There’s no doubt in my mind that President Trump is committed to rejecting completely the traditional separation between the Department of Justice and the White House,” said Stephen A. Saltzburg, a former department official who now teaches at George Washington University Law School. “He does not regard the Justice Department as an independent agency. He views it as a part of a unified executive branch. … They work for him.”
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One order tasks the attorney general with rooting out alleged wrongdoing by the Justice Department during Joe Biden's presidency, while another directs the attorney general to probe perceived "government censorship" by the last administration, and border orders require the A.G. with making recommendations for remedial actions, which the Post said would give the nation's top law enforcement office a "lengthy to-do list" on Day One.
"Newly inaugurated presidents often quickly sign orders aimed at putting their stamp on the executive branch," the newspaper reported, citing Barack Obama's orders ending harsh interrogation techniques and Biden's directives ending some of Trump's actions. "Trump, though, assumed office this week after long raging against the Justice Department, saying that the agency 'has been weaponized against me and other Republicans' and expressing a desire to exert more control over it. During his presidential campaign, Trump told advisers and friends he wanted the Justice Department to investigate his critics and also spoke of prosecuting officials there and at the FBI."
Many of the orders dwell on Trump's long-standing grievances against the former president, who bested him in the 2020 election, but the directives lack specifics for how those reviews should be conducted or what actions the attorney general should take “to ensure accountability” and “correct past misconduct.”
“It’s not the clearest thing in the world,” said Mary McCord, a former DOJ official who now leads the Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection at Georgetown University. “But there’s no indication in this executive order that there is respect for the ‘no contacts’ policy [between the DOJ and White House] — that there won’t be communications about specific investigations and prosecutions.”