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President-elect Trump‘s vow to overhaul the Justice Department is often cast in sweeping, ominous language: He’d seek retribution against his enemies, back deportations of millions of undocumented immigrants, and more.
Driving the news: But Republicans have been dropping hints — some conflicting — with more details about Trump’s plans once he takes office Jan. 20. Beyond Trump’s campaign rhetoric, those clues have come from:
- Matt Gaetz, Trump’s failed nominee for attorney general
- Trump’s selection of Pam Bondi, a former Florida attorney general, as the president-elect’s new nominee for AG
- Project 2025, the conservative blueprint for Trump’s second term put together by Trump allies. (He distanced himself from the plan during the campaign, but since the election his transition team appears to have warmed to it.)
- Trump himself, who according to a Washington Post report Friday plans to fire special counsel Jack Smith’s team, which prosecuted Trump over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
Zoom in: During his meetings with Senator Republicans before his withdrawal as the nominee, Gaetz downplayed plans for the DOJ to go after Trump’s political and legal enemies.
- He told the senators that he wanted to break “the cycle of weaponizing DOJ,” The Bulwark reported, and focus more on immigration, investigations into antisemitism and voter fraud, among other things.
- Gaetz’s comments could have been merely part of a strategy to appease Republicans wary of approving a nominee who’d been investigated over allegations of sex trafficking, corruption and drug use.
- But coming from Trump’s top choice for AG, they also could have signaled a disconnect between the president-elect’s campaign rhetoric on retribution and his true plans — at least as Gaetz saw them.
After Gaetz withdrew, Trump quickly turned to Bondi, a MAGA loyalist and veteran prosecutor who served on then-President Trump’s opioid and drug abuse commission.
- Bondi represented Trump during his first impeachment trial and was among the lawyers supporting Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him.
- She would give the new administration a loyal, experienced prosecutor atop the DOJ who has expressed a willingness to fight what Trump calls the “weaponization” of the department.
- That could be particularly useful to Trump if he follows through on his threat to blur the traditional lines between the White House and an independent attorney general — and go after his political enemies.
- On Friday, the Post reported that Trump planned to have the DOJ investigate the 2020 election and fire Smith’s team, whose actions he had long vowed to avenge. Trump also has signaled plans to remove FBI director Christopher Wray before Wray’s term is up in 2027.
- “For too long, the partisan Department of Justice has been weaponized against me and other Republicans,” Trump said in announcing Bondi’s nomination. “Not anymore. Pam will refocus the DOJ to its intended purpose of fighting crime, and Making America Safe Again.”
Zoom out: Then there’s Project 2025, the over 900-page manifesto that offers more clues on how Trump could revamp the Justice Department.
- The chapter on the DOJ — written by Gene Hamilton, an official with the department during Trump’s first term — calls for a “top-to-bottom overhaul” that would involve more closely aligning DOJ with the president’s agenda.
- It sees a “vast expansion” of political appointees to the DOJ, particularly in the civil rights division, the FBI and the Executive Office for Immigration Review, which helps oversee deportation procedures.
Between the lines: Trump previously announced plans to appoint Todd Blanche as deputy attorney general and Emil Bove as principal associate deputy attorney general.
- Bove and Blanche represented Trump during his hush-money trial in New York this year.
- Trump also plans to appoint John Sauer as solicitor general. Sauer represented Trump during the case at the Supreme Court that led the court to grant broad immunity to presidents for official actions while they’re in office.
- If those three and Bondi are all confirmed by the Senate, Trump will have four of his personal lawyers in top posts at the DOJ — ready to carry out his sweeping legal agenda.
Go deeper: Behind the Curtain: Why Trump picked Gaetz