Hours after being sworn in as President Trump’s attorney general, Pam Bondi declared to the entire Justice Department work force, “This shameful era ends today.”
That assertion, in one of 14 memos she issued on Wednesday, underscored what many current and former law enforcement officials describe as a major — and alarming — departure from years of Justice Department practice in which it steered clear of political rhetoric. The new tone, they said, suggests the opposite, seeming to promise a campaign of intimidation against career prosecutors and agents viewed as insufficiently loyal to Mr. Trump.
Such language is not unique to Ms. Bondi. Newly minted senior officials from powerful perches across the Justice Department have issued fiery broadsides against employees, denouncing “insubordination” or “abhorrent” conduct and, in one instance, vowing to pursue unspecified opponents of Mr. Trump’s cost-cutting efforts “to the ends of the Earth.”
One Justice Department lawyer who has worked in both Republican and Democratic administrations said the attorney general’s words were chilling in appearing to suggest that the new leadership of the department sees long-serving career lawyers as villains.
Another of Ms. Bondi’s memos urged “zealous” advocacy for the president’s agenda, part of a series of missives from top officials effectively demanding loyalty from their employees.
“I am not the president’s lawyer; I serve the people of the United States,” the lawyer said, speaking on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution. “I’ve always been able to go to my supervisor and say, ‘I got this case and I’m uncomfortable with it.’ Based on the attorney general’s emails, it seems like those conversations are not welcome anymore, and that is scary.”
That memo warned that “any attorney who because of their personal political views or judgments declines to sign a brief or appear in court, refuses to advance good-faith arguments on behalf of the administration, or otherwise delays or impedes the department’s mission will be subject to discipline and potentially termination, consistent with applicable law.”
It has long been the practice within the Justice Department that lawyers do not substitute their own views for the administration’s goals or the department’s policies. On rare occasions, however, lawyers may argue that they cannot make a good-faith argument for a particular position. To some Justice Department lawyers, the new directives are intended to nip any such internal disagreement before an objection can be raised.
Ms. Bondi and the other Trump-picked leaders of the Justice Department have framed their criticism by mirroring grievances Mr. Trump has aired, insisting that the department was corrupted by political leadership and the “deep state” career employees who, they argue, unfairly investigated and prosecuted him.
In another memo by Ms. Bondi, she asserted that “no one who has acted with a righteous spirit and just intentions has any cause for concern about efforts to root out corruption and weaponization.”
Bennett Gershman, a law professor at Pace University who has long studied prosecutorial misconduct, disagreed sharply with the administration’s claim that it was rooting out wrongdoing.
“This is a whole new day in terms of what the word ‘justice’ means in the Justice Department,” he said. “It’s not neutral or evenhanded justice, it’s Trump justice.”
The kind of backward-looking finger-pointing in Ms. Bondi’s first batch of memos is sometimes apparent when new district attorneys are elected to office, but a far cry from how federal prosecutors speak and write, Mr. Gershman said.
“The tone is inflammatory, hysterical and seeking punishment,” he said. “It looks like the department is seeking retribution and retaliation, and obviously that’s a terrible thing for law enforcement.”
To be sure, some of Ms. Bondi’s memos are generally in keeping with past Justice Department traditions. But while talking about zealous legal work is common in private practice, to hear it from the head of the Justice Department is “disturbing,” said Stephen Gillers, a professor of legal ethics at New York University.
For 90 years, the nation’s legal system has been guided by a unanimous Supreme Court decision that held that a federal prosecutor is not like other lawyers, but represents “a sovereignty whose obligation to govern impartially is as compelling as its obligation to govern at all; and whose interest, therefore, in a criminal prosecution is not that it shall win a case, but that justice shall be done.”
Keeping Mr. Trump happy may be a recurring concern for members of his administration, Mr. Gillers said, “but the anti-weaponization memo goes too far. It is itself an example of the weaponizing D.O.J. says it wants to eliminate.”
That memo singles out Jack Smith, the former special counsel, as well as the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, and the New York attorney general, Letitia James. Targeting federal and local prosecutors by name “can only be explained by an inappropriate desire to satisfy Trump’s apparent need for revenge,” Mr. Gillers added, noting that doing so was “far out of bounds for the Department of Justice.”
Within the department and the F.B.I., the early decisions by Ms. Bondi; the acting No. 2, Emil Bove III; and Ed Martin, the temporary U.S. attorney for Washington, suggest what their written statements really mean.
Dozens of prosecutors who worked on Jan. 6 cases have been fired. Senior career lawyers handling environment, criminal, national security or antitrust have been effectively demoted to work on one of the Trump administration’s priorities, making U.S. cities cooperate more extensively with deportations. Some have refused, choosing instead to resign or retire.
And Mr. Bove has demanded a list of F.B.I. agents who worked on Jan. 6 cases, amid discussions among Trump administration officials to potentially fire hundreds of them, according to people familiar with the discussions who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution.
In a subsequent memo that was both accusatory and defensive, Mr. Bove said he originally wanted a smaller group of names, but bureau leaders refused to provide them.
“There is no honor in the ongoing efforts to distort that simple truth or protect culpable actors from scrutiny on these issues, which have politicized the bureau, harmed its credibility and distracted the public from the excellent work being done every day,” he added.
On Friday, Mr. Trump said he would, indeed, fire F.B.I. agents, though he offered no specifics.
In other parts of the department, newly installed officials have sent similarly hostile missives, including at the Executive Office for Immigration Review. The temporary head of that office, Sirce E. Owen, complained to staff members that immigration judges had been wrongly pressured by managers to extend cases before making a final decision on whether migrants should be deported.
“Such a practice is abhorrent, contrary to law, and erodes E.O.I.R.’s integrity and the decisional independence of its adjudicators,” she wrote.
But to many current and former Justice Department officials, Mr. Martin, the interim U.S. attorney in Washington, has displayed some of the most unnerving behavior.
He has begun an internal investigation of Jan. 6 investigations, complained bitterly when his all-staff emails made headlines and, last week, publicly declared his eagerness to pursue an investigation related to fights over Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency.
“Dear Steve and Elon,” Mr. Martin wrote, referring to Mr. Musk, the world’s richest man, and his associate, Steve Davis, regarding “individuals and networks who appear to be stealing government property and/or threatening government employees.”
Mr. Martin pledged, in a letter posted publicly on Mr. Musk’s X social media platform, to investigate the matter. He vowed, “If people are discovered to have broken the law or even acted simply unethically, we will investigate them and we will chase them to the end of the Earth to hold them accountable.”
Mr. Gershman, the law professor, said he was “aghast” when he first read Mr. Martin’s letter, both for his seeming desire to ingratiate himself with Mr. Musk and for his apparent promise to use criminal investigations to pursue noncriminal conduct.
“I’ve never seen a prosecutor say anything like that,” he said. “That’s an indication of where the U.S. attorney’s office is today, and you almost can’t believe it.”
