Rule of Law undermined in Trump’s DoJ under Bondi: The Guardian
9 Min Read
The Guardian reveals how Trump’s DOJ under Pam Bondi prioritized loyalty, targeted critics, and undermined legal norms, alarming top legal experts.
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President Donald Trump arrives with Attorney General Pam Bondi to speak at the Justice Department in Washington, Friday, March 14, 2025 (AP)
Under Attorney General Pam Bondi, Trump’s Department of Justice has aggressively targeted political opponents, pushed harsh anti-immigrant policies, and favored corporate allies, actions that former prosecutors and legal experts say exemplify the politicization of the DoJ under Trump, The Guardian reported on Friday.
The British daily cited some of the experts going as far as saying that the Department of Justice has become Trump's "personal law firm."
Since returning to the office, Trump has relied on loyalist Pam Bondi and a handpicked group of Justice Department lawyers to target critics from his first term, along with political opponents, while simultaneously reducing prosecutions of US companies involved in overseas bribery.
Pam Bondi’s role in reshaping DoJ
Former prosecutors highlighted how Bondi and senior Justice Department officials have dismissed significant cases, purged attorneys who failed to align with MAGA loyalty standards, and followed Trump's directive to probe a major Democratic fundraising organization as clear evidence of the administration's efforts to weaponize the department for political purposes.
Critics point out that after Bondi assumed the role of attorney general, she issued a memo creating a "weaponization working group" that promoted the baseless claim that the special counsel's investigations into Trump's attempts to overturn the 2020 election and his mishandling of classified documents were driven by political bias, according to The Guardian.
Former prosecutors warn that Bondi's reshaping of the Justice Department has prioritized personal allegiance to Trump above all else for staff, eroding legal norms, drawing repeated judicial condemnations, and triggering either voluntary departures or dismissals of experienced career prosecutors.
Crackdown on critics, shielding of allies
“The steps Trump and Bondi have taken using DoJ to punish enemies and reward allies while firing those who object radically transform and politicize DoJ in a way that not even the worst who have gone before them ever contemplated,” former federal prosecutor Paul Rosenzweig told The Guardian.
"Trump’s transmuting DoJ into his personal law firm is, in effect, a rejection of the founding principle of the rule of law," he added.
DoJ moving in troubling alignment with Trump's agenda
Additional former prosecutors observe the Justice Department moving in troubling alignment with Trump's political objectives while compromising its fundamental duty to uphold impartial justice and safeguard constitutional principles.
“Bondi and DoJ lawyers have certainly tried to make personal loyalty to Trump the justice department’s guiding principle,” Columbia law professor and ex-federal prosecutor Daniel Richman stated.
Critics highlight how Bondi has amplified Trump's inflammatory attacks on judicial officials by dismissing judges who blocked the administration's chaotic mass deportation efforts as "low-level leftist judges attempting to undermine President Trump's executive authority."
Live threats against judges
After the FBI arrested a Milwaukee judge for allegedly obstructing the arrest of an undocumented immigrant, Bondi appeared on Fox News to warn other judges who might resist their agenda.
“They’re deranged. I think some of these judges think they are beyond and above the law, and they are not. We will come after you and we will prosecute you,” she said.
Critics say that hundreds of lawyers and staff in the Justice Department’s civil rights division are now leaving the historic unit as its focus shifts toward Trump-era priorities, such as targeting elite universities and student protesters, while scaling back on traditional civil and voting rights cases.
First Trump term officials probed
officialsOther actions by the department under Bondi, a former Florida attorney general who later joined Trump’s legal team during his first impeachment trial in 2020, along with decisions by some elite Justice Department lawyers, demonstrate a staunch loyalty to Trump and have drawn intense backlash.
The Guardian highlighted that these actions include an investigation into two former officials from Trump's first term, Chris Krebs and Miles Taylor, who had clashed with the president.
Krebs drew scrutiny for refusing to support Trump's false claims about election fraud in 2020, while Taylor faced backlash after writing a 2018 New York Times op-ed warning about Trump's threats to democracy.
Trump admin. goes after fundraisers...
In a further controversial action, Trump signed an executive order in April directing the Justice Department to probe unsubstantiated claims that ActBlue, a prominent Democratic online fundraising platform, had participated in fraudulent fundraising activities.
Additionally, Trump pressured the Department of Justice to abandon a five-count criminal fraud case against New York Mayor Eric Adams, despite months of work by the Justice Department's elite Southern District prosecutors, as Trump sought to gain Adams' public backing for his immigration policies in the city.
Certain measures seem designed to benefit corporate allies.
Cryptocurrency divisions as well...
Critics pointed out to The Guardian that in April, the Justice Department unexpectedly shuttered a cryptocurrency enforcement division established in 2022, which had effectively prosecuted high-profile cases, including operations by North Korean hackers and financial scammers, but faced criticism from prominent cryptocurrency figures who financially supported Trump’s recent campaign.
Under Trump's administration, the Justice Department has implemented a six-month moratorium on prosecuting companies accused of violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, the longstanding anti-bribery law that prohibits American businesses from making illicit payments to secure foreign contracts.
Journalists too
Other actions appear driven by Trump's hostility toward journalists who criticize his administration.
In a shift from recent Justice Department practice, Bondi eliminated protections for press freedom by authorizing investigators to compel reporters to disclose anonymous sources in cases involving leaked information.
Reports indicate that Bondi has shown a pattern of shielding political allies, most notably when she refused to investigate "Signalgate" despite substantial evidence that senior national security officials had unlawfully disclosed classified intelligence ahead of a planned military operation against the Houthis in Yemen.
Legal, ethical fallout
Former prosecutors argue that Bondi and the Justice Department's prioritization of personal allegiance to Trump over impartial enforcement undermines foundational legal principles and erodes the integrity of the justice system.
Critics highlight that federal courts have reprimanded the Justice Department for obstructing deportation-related orders and inquiries, as well as failing to repatriate a Maryland resident wrongly imprisoned in El Salvador due to what ICE labeled an "administrative error".
“Never in history has DoJ broken so defiantly from respecting, as it’s obligated to do, the decisions of federal courts,” said former prosecutor Ty Cobb, adding that “this is a war that Trump and Bondi are waging against the rule of law.”
Detrimental outcomes
Legal experts observe that Bondi's tenure has largely produced detrimental outcomes beyond immigration matters.
Richman specifically pointed to her decisions to dismiss high-profile cases, including the prosecution of Mayor Adams and Foreign Corrupt Practices Act violations, while also removing experienced prosecutors from their positions.
“We will soon see how this administration fares when it actually seeks a result in court, even if it’s only defensive. As the proceedings in the recent Maryland deportation case highlighted, courts demand a candor and respect for law that the Justice Department's leadership finds inconsistent with the loyalty it demands," Richman added.
DoJ with unconditional support for Trump
Several experienced prosecutors who resigned from the Justice Department following the arrival of Trump and Bondi have stated that the initial actions taken by the new leadership immediately raised serious concerns, which ultimately led to their decisions to leave.
“Bondi has made clear – before becoming attorney general, and since – that she wants the Department of Justice to support President Trump unconditionally,” Mike Romano, a former employee who resigned from the department in late March, told The Guardian.
Threats of termination
Romano revealed that immediately after Bondi's confirmation, she distributed a memo to all Justice Department staff warning that employees would be terminated if they refused to support the Trump administration's legal positions, defend its policies, or endorse its court filings, with Romano adding that Bondi's team has since carried out these threats through dismissals and forced resignations.
He stressed that colleagues faced firings or demotions for prosecuting Capitol rioters, while four integrity section managers quit rather than sign off on dismissing the Adams case, proving dissent wouldn't be tolerated if staff wanted to keep their jobs.
Weaponizing law enforcement, promoting 'false narrative'
Barbara McQuade, a former US attorney and current University of Michigan law professor, argued that Bondi’s memo creating a "weaponization working group" actually weaponizes law enforcement by promoting a "false narrative" about Jack Smith’s Trump investigations, eroding public trust in government.
McQuade noted that federal grand juries had issued indictments in both cases, demonstrating they found probable cause for the alleged crimes. She added that Justice Department rules prohibit prosecutors from basing charging decisions on partisan politics.
She also highlighted Bondi's claim that a federal judge had "sided with Tren de Aragua terrorists over American safety" and was "biased" for blocking the deportation of Venezuelan men to El Salvador without due process, another example, McQuade argued, of the Justice Department's politicization under Bondi.
The former US attorney emphasized that there was no evidence the judge acted improperly, explaining that he simply applied the law to a questionable invocation of the Alien Enemies Act, a statute intended for wartime use.
Rosenzweig argued that Trump's politicization of the Justice Department undermines its core mission of upholding the rule of law. He stressed that the DOJ is not just another federal agency like Agriculture or HHS, but rather holds a distinct role as the guardian of the rule of law, a foundational principle that defines America's democratic system.
“Thomas Paine said: ‘In America, the law is king.’ Trump wants to make his word the law and himself the king," Rosenzweig concluded.
