Tag
The Department of Justice — the federal agency responsible for law enforcement and administration of justice. Incidents involve politicization of the DOJ, weaponized prosecutions, and the erosion of prosecutorial independence.
3 incidents
Grade 4 of 5: Critical Rights and Rule-of-Law Concern
A pattern of court order defiance, threats against judges, calls for impeachment, and DOJ Civil Rights Division gutting that constitutional scholars describe as the most serious executive-judicial confrontation since at least Watergate.
Grade 2 of 5: Major Abuse of Power
Trump's attacks on DOJ independence were systematic across four years. He publicly tweeted demands for prosecution of Clinton and others; pressured Sessions to unrecuse and Rosenstein to limit Mueller's investigation; fired Comey; asked Mueller to be fired (stopped only by White House counsel Don McGahn's threatened resignation); demanded investigation of the FBI's origins investigation; and in December 2020–January 2021 pressured acting AG Jeffrey Rosen to pursue election fraud claims after Bill Barr had resigned rather than act on them. The January 3, 2021 Oval Office meeting in which Trump demanded Rosen be replaced with Jeffrey Clark — who would have sent false letters to state officials claiming DOJ had found election fraud — was documented in Senate Judiciary Committee testimony.
Outside the grading scale: Pre-Office Conduct
The DOJ brought one of the largest housing discrimination lawsuits of 1973 against the Trumps, alleging their agents told Black rental applicants apartments were not available when they were available to white applicants, coded applications by race, and directed minority applicants to housing in predominantly Black neighborhoods. Trump denied the allegations vigorously and counterattacked the DOJ. The company settled in 1975 and was sued again in 1978 for violating the decree.