December 17, 2025

Carved into the Department of Justice’s limestone facade is the phrase, “Where law ends, tyranny begins.” As a young lawyer, I recall the first time I saw the inscription — a slight derivation of John Locke’s famous quotation from “Second Treatise of Government.”

It was the mid-1990s. Bill Clinton was president, and his attorney general was a reclusive woman named Janet Reno. As I walked past the building, I reflected on how it was physically close to the White House and the Capitol, but spiritually distant from both.

I had read in history books about how President John F. Kennedy named his brother attorney general, and how President Richard Nixon’s attorney general helped him win the election and later served prison time in connection with Watergate. By the time I entered adulthood, that type of relationship seemed impossible and implausible — something from another era, long gone.

I was taught that the Department of Justice was special. It kept its distance from politics. While the attorney general was appointed by the president, their obligation was to the people, and justice was to be administered without political influence or consideration.

When Barack Obama became president, I had several friends and professional acquaintances who served in the White House and at the DOJ. They spoke of the wall between the two as if it were impenetrable. When, during the 2016 presidential campaign, Bill Clinton exchanged pleasantries with the sitting attorney general, it was treated as a scandal by the legacy media.

During the Biden administration, it was widely reported that Attorney General Merrick Garland rarely met with President Joe Biden. When it came to prosecuting Trump, the commitment to avoiding even a whiff of politicization slowed the investigation and ultimately prevented any prosecution before the 45th president returned to office.

All of this changed when Donald Trump regained the presidency. Even before taking office, he made clear that the separation we had come to expect between the White House and the Department of Justice was a thing of the past.

There is no question who Pam Bondi believes she represents. There is no doubt about her loyalty or where she takes direction. 

She is Donald Trump’s lawyer when she wakes up and Donald Trump’s lawyer when she goes to sleep. Every action she takes is designed to remain in sync with the White House — whether it is the criminal indictment of a political foe or the use of courts to gain an advantage in the next election.

I condemn what the DOJ has become, and I’m scared for what it means for the future of our country and democracy. For that reason, I can’t shake the anger I feel about what it was before. To be clear: I applaud Attorney General Garland for striving to be the people’s lawyer, and I respect his commitment to fairness. However, in the end, he elevated norms above all else — and it came at a price.

I have been harboring these feelings for some time. Shortly before Trump took office, I wrote on Bluesky that Garland “brought norms to a Trump fight and democracy suffered.”

In his farewell address to the Department, Attorney General Garland said he was committed to an independent Department of Justice “not because independence is necessarily constitutionally required, but because it is the only way to ensure that our law enforcement decisions are free from partisan influence.”

At the time, this struck me as wrong. I am even more convinced now that it is.

First, not only is an independent Justice Department not constitutionally required, but it is also not constitutionally possible. The attorney general serves at the pleasure of the president and can be fired at any time, for any reason.

As for partisan considerations, the way to ensure fair decision-making is to commit to a process based on merit. Fake walls and clumsy norms are not the solution. Honesty and integrity are.

This does not mean I approve of the current, extreme arrangement. Attorney General Pam Bondi and Donald Trump speak so frequently that he has accidentally posted their private conversations on social media.

There is no doubt that in Pam Bondi’s Justice Department, every decision is influenced by partisanship. Every prosecution and investigation is a potential act of political revenge. Decisions in the Voting Section are aimed at helping Republicans win elections.

Officials enforce or ignore laws, grant pardons, and take actions solely to please Trump. Facts, evidence and law take a back seat.

Somewhere between Garland’s fetishization of norms and Bondi’s lawlessness lies a sensible path forward. The next Democratic president should choose an attorney general willing to use the full range of legal tools to achieve the administration’s legitimate policy goals.

The president should remain involved in ensuring those goals are achieved — whether through litigation or policy. There should be no false separation or artificial divisions.

And at the end of the day, if the public is not pleased, this is why we have elections. Voters can judge whether the DOJ is acting appropriately. They can hold the president and their party accountable through the democratic process if they believe lines have been crossed. They can pressure other institutions — such as Congress — to conduct oversight and enact new laws to correct perceived abuses.

What we cannot do is go backward. As I said, we cannot bring norms to a Trump fight. We cannot fight weaponization with procedure. We tried that, and we failed.

The next Democratic president must come to the job prepared to use the expanded powers of the presidency. That includes having the courage to appoint Department of Justice leadership ready to meet the moment we are in — not the one we nostalgically wish had endured.