How the Justice Department’s independence is being threatened

WASHINGTON (AP) — Pam Bondi had insisted at her Senate confirmation hearing that as attorney general, her Justice Department would not “play politics.”

Yet in the month since the Trump administration took over the building, a succession of actions has raised concerns the department is doing exactly that.

Top officials have demanded the names of thousands of FBI agents who investigated the Capitol riot, sued a state attorney general who had won a massive fraud verdict against Donald Trump before the 2024 election, and ordered the dismissal of a criminal case against New York Mayor Eric Adams by saying the charges had handicapped the Democrat’s ability to partner in the Republican administration’s fight against illegal immigration.

Even for a department that has endured its share of scandals, the moves have produced upheaval not seen in decades, tested its independence and rattled the foundations of an institution that has long prided itself on being driven solely by facts, evidence and the law. As firings and resignations mount, the unrest raises the question of whether a president who raged against his own Justice Department during his first term can succeed in bending it to his will in his second.

“We have seen now a punishing ruthlessness that acting department leadership and the attorney general are bringing to essentially subjugate the workforce to the wishes and demands of the administration, even when it’s obvious” that some of the decisions have all the signs “of corrupting the criminal justice system,” said retired federal prosecutor David Laufman, a senior department official across Democratic and Republican administrations.

He spoke not long after Manhattan’s top federal prosecutor, Danielle Sassoon, resigned in protest following a directive from Emil Bove, the Justice Department’s acting No. 2 official, to dismiss the case against Adams.

In a letter foreshadowing her decision, Sassoon accused the department of acceding to a “quid pro quo” — dropping the case to ensure Adams’ help with Trump’s immigration agenda. Though a Democrat, Adams had for months positioned himself as eager to aid the administration’s effort in America’s largest city, even meeting privately with Trump at Trump’s Florida estate just days before the Republican took office.

Multiple high-ranking officials who oversaw the Justice Department’s public integrity section, which prosecutes corruption cases, joined Sassoon in resigning.

On Friday, a prosecutor involved in the Adams case, Hagan Scotten, became at least the seventh person to quit in the standoff, telling Bove in a letter that it would take a “fool” or a “coward” to meet his demand to drop the charges. (Bove and department lawyers in Washington ultimately filed paperwork Friday night to end the case).

Though the circumstances are significantly different, the wave of resignations conjured memories of the 1973 “Saturday Night Massacre” when multiple Justice Department leaders quit rather than carry out President Richard Nixon’s orders to fire the Watergate special prosecutor.

“Even though there may not be more resignations, a clear message has been sent about the objectives and the expectations of the department,” said Alberto Gonzales, who served as attorney general under Republican President George W. Bush until his 2007 resignation in the wake of the dismissal of several U.S. attorneys.

“The purpose of the department is to ensure that our laws are carried out, that those who engage in criminal wrongdoing are prosecuted and punished,” Gonzales said. And to some it may appear “that if you have some kind of relationship with the White House, there may not be consequences for doing something that ordinary Americans engaged in similar conduct would be punished.”

Bove, a former New York federal prosecutor himself who represented Trump in his criminal cases, pointedly made no assessment about the legal merits of the case against Adams. Bove cited political reasons, including the timing of the charges months before Adams’ presumed reelection campaign and the restrictions the case had placed on the mayor’s ability to fight illegal immigration and violent crime.

In a letter to Sassoon, Bove said case prosecutors would be subject to internal investigations.

Bondi defended the decision to drop the case, asserted in a Fox New interview Friday that Adams was targeted after he criticized the Biden administration’s immigration policies. Her chief of staff, Chad Mizelle, said prosecutors who refused the dismissal order have “no place at DOJ.”

“The decision to dismiss the indictment of Eric Adams is yet another indication that this DOJ will return to its core function of prosecuting dangerous criminals, not pursuing politically motivated witch hunts,” Mizelle said in a statement that accused prosecutors without evidence of “disordered and ulterior motives.”

At the White House on Friday, Trump said he was “not involved” in the Adams case and knew “nothing” about it.

The New York showdown follows a separate dispute between Bove and the acting FBI leadership over his demands for a list of agents involved in the investigations of the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol so the Justice Department could determine whether personnel action was warranted.

The request was seen by some as a precursor to possible mass firings, but it was also consistent with Trump’s fury over those criminal cases, which he erased with sweeping pardons soon after his inauguration.

Bove referred to the acting FBI director’s resistance to his directive as an act of “insubordination” and said agents who “simply followed” orders would not lose their jobs but those who acted with “partisan intent” were at risk.

In between White House terms, Trump and his allies pressed the case that the Justice Department had become “weaponized” against conservatives and him in particular, citing separate indictments that were later dismissed after Trump won back the presidency in November.

On her first day on the job, Bondi announced the creation of a “Weaponization Working Group,” to scrutinize the prosecutors who brought criminal and civil cases against Trump and to examine the Jan. 6 prosecutions. She wrote in a memo that the department “must take immediate and overdue steps to restore integrity and credibility” and to ensure that personnel were “ready and willing” to implement the president’s agenda.

The group, notably, was not tasked with examining other politically sensitive matters more favorable to Trump, including a special counsel’s investigation of Democratic President Joe Biden’s handling of classified information or the prosecution of Biden’s son Hunter, who was convicted of gun and tax charges before receiving a pardon from his father in December.

Among the prosecutors singled out by the working group was special counsel Jack Smith, who brought two criminal cases against Trump, and New York Attorney General Letitia James, whose civil fraud suit against Trump led to a nearly $500 million judgment.

A frequent target of Trump’s ire, James would surface again days later when Bondi, in her first news conference, announced a lawsuit against the state of New York over a law that allows people who might not be in the U.S. legally to get a driver’s license. Bondi opened her remarks by saying she had “filed charges” against James and Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul, before later clarifying that she was referring to a lawsuit.

More departures — and more turmoil — could be ahead.

“The prospect of the hollowing out of the Justice Department and the (FBI) is now a live and dangerous risk being played out,” said Laufman, the retired prosecutor. “Where it goes from here, we just can’t currently assess.”