Trump tightens his grip on the US justice system
The president has appointed his former lawyer, Todd Blanche, as attorney general to push cases against his political enemies and defend him against possible legal attacks
A poster with the stern, almost threatening, face of Donald Trump has hung on the facade of the United States Department of Justice for several months. The image is accompanied by a slogan: “Make America Safe Again.” Similar banners featuring the same defiant image of the president hang from other federal buildings. But none is as symbolic or as politically charged. Although the Department of Justice falls under the authority of the White House, it has traditionally been regarded as the most independent member of the Cabinet, serving to limit political interference in judicial matters. Since Watergate, the scandal that brought down Richard Nixon in the early 1970s, presidents have generally kept their distance from the department. But since Trump arrived at the White House, that supposed neutrality has been blown apart.
Last week, Trump appointed his former lawyer and friend Todd Blanche as attorney general, the position that heads the Department of Justice. It is the latest step in a strategy of placing loyalists in key positions to strengthen control over an institution that had become one of the few remaining centers of resistance to his chaotic and arbitrary policies. He already enjoys a favorable majority on the Supreme Court, with six conservatives (three of them appointed by him) among its nine justices. He has appointed new judges and prosecutors whom he hopes will support him, and he has placed around 20 of his former private attorneys in strategic roles to relaunch prosecutions against his political enemies.
Blanche is no ordinary lawyer. He represented Trump in the Stormy Daniels hush-money case, in which Trump was convicted on 34 counts related to falsified business records used to conceal payments of $130,000 to the woman. He was also on the front lines of Trump’s defense in the conspiracy and election-obstruction cases stemming from irregularities in the 2020 election. And he defended the president in the case involving the retention of classified government documents at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate after his first term ended.
Blanche, who had been acting attorney general until now, takes over the position vacated five months ago by Pam Bondi, who was dismissed following controversy over her handling of the declassification of files related to convicted sex offender and financier Jeffrey Epstein, as well as her hesitant approach to pursuing Trump’s political enemies through the courts. Blanche is even more loyal to Trump than Bondi; he was the strategist behind the Supreme Court ruling issued in 2024 granting presidents immunity for official acts carried out in office. On that basis, he believes Trump has the right to do virtually anything.
Blanche also released the latest batch of Epstein documents. The process was marred by irregularities: numerous files remained secret while others revealed the victims’ identities.
As acting attorney general, Blanche also reached an out-of-court settlement with Trump to dismiss the former president’s $10 billion lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), the U.S. tax agency, in exchange for creating a $1.8 billion compensation fund for friends and allies who claimed they had been persecuted by the previous administration. The fund would supposedly have benefited the mob that, encouraged by Trump, stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, in an effort to prevent the certification of Joe Biden’s election victory. The agreement also included tax immunity for Trump, his family, and all of his businesses. The controversial deal nearly derailed Blanche’s confirmation as attorney general. He ultimately had to pledge to scrap the compensation fund and limit the president’s tax immunity in order to persuade several Republicans to support his nomination.
“Mr. Blanche has taken several actions that have further eroded the Department’s independence, and that is the basis for my vote to oppose his confirmation,” Republican Senator Susan Collins said in a statement on Thursday. “While I believe Mr. Blanche is a capable lawyer, the Department of Justice has become increasingly political,” she argued, adding: “More than 1,200 former Department of Justice employees have opposed his nomination, arguing that he has undermined the institution.”
Blanche’s appointment is seen as an effort by the president to tighten his grip on the justice system. Trump, who has spent half his life in courtrooms — he faced multiple lawsuits over his aggressive business tactics in late-20th-century New York — is seeking to intensify the political pursuit of his opponents while shielding his most controversial policies.
Trump has never hidden his desire for revenge. He faced two impeachment trials in the U.S. Congress and was acquitted from both, but the experiences left him deeply wounded and resentful. “You got to win the midterms because if we don’t win the midterms [...] they’ll find a reason to impeach me,” he said earlier this year at a rally with Republican lawmakers in Washington, referring to the November elections to renew the House of Representatives and part of the Senate. Trump frequently insults and belittles his rivals and often threatens them with legal action.
After returning to the White House for a second term, Trump launched a campaign of political retaliation against those who had investigated and prosecuted him. To that end, he ordered former attorney general Pam Bondi to indict James Comey, the former FBI director who investigated Trump’s ties to Russian interference in the 2016 election. Federal prosecutors sued Comey over a photograph of seashells arranged to form the numbers “8647,” which they interpreted as a coded threat against the president.
Trump has also called for legal action against John Bolton, his former national security adviser during his first administration, and Letitia James, New York’s attorney general, who pursued a banking and financial fraud case against him. He additionally urged the attorney general to investigate Democratic Senator Mark Kelly, a former astronaut and combat pilot, along with five other lawmakers who published a video encouraging members of the armed forces to refuse unlawful orders in response to changes introduced at the Department of Defense by Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth. “Each one of these traitors to our country should be arrested and put on trial,” Trump posted on his social network Truth Social, shortly after the senators published the video.
“Sometimes revenge can be justified,” Trump said during the last election campaign when asked whether he would take revenge on his political rivals.
One chapter of the book Regime Change, written by two New York Times journalists, illustrates the president’s and his inner circle’s thirst for revenge. The authors recount how, in the spring of 2025, just a few months after regaining power, Trump was sitting in the Oval Office surrounded by advisers while compiling a list of “past grievances.” At one point, the president said: “I remember there was this lawyer who was in the administration who said the election was fair and there’s no fraud. Who was he?” he asked.
One of his closest advisers recalled that it was a government lawyer at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) called Chris Krebs. “Whatever happened to him?” asked Trump. “He was a bad one. Take a look at him.” A few days later, the White House issued an order directing the Department of Justice to investigate Krebs.
It is another example of how Trump is using pressure on the judicial system as part of a campaign of retaliation against anyone who opposes him, while also seeking to protect his policies and build a defensive line against what he fears most: a future effort by Democrats to go after him.
What happened last week in the case involving Washington’s Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, one of Trump’s signature projects, also illustrates the pressure he exerts on the justice system. Federal prosecutor Jeanine Pirro, a longtime friend of the president dating back to their days when both appeared on reality TV shows, withdrew the case against those accused of vandalizing the monument. The decision enraged Trump, who accused Pirro of “folding like an umbrella.” Since then, he has been pushing for the case to be reopened because he cannot accept that the pool’s renovation may have been flawed, as that would undermine his image as an effective and decisive builder.
Trump also has the support of the Supreme Court, where six conservative justices outnumber three liberals. In more than 80% of its rulings, the Court has sided with him. Even so, he has suffered setbacks in several important cases, including disputes over tariffs and birthright citizenship. That has not deterred him. He has found ways to circumvent those rulings and keep his policies in place.
In the 567 days since returning to the Oval Office for his second term, Trump has appointed 54 judges and 52 federal prosecutors. He has also tightened control over the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) more than any other president, at least in the 21st century.
Last Friday, in a marathon session, Republicans, acting at the White House’s request, succeeded in approving 136 appointments, including dozens of judges at various levels of the judiciary, new federal prosecutors, and other judicial officials. Although Biden appointed more federal judges over the course of his four years in office, Trump has moved very quickly to fill the key positions that oversee federal investigations and prosecutions.
The U.S. president has replaced career officials with decades of experience with his own private attorneys in crucial government roles. In addition to installing Blanche as attorney general, the most prominent example, he also secured the appointment of Emil Bove as a judge on the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, a critical position responsible for accepting or rejecting appeals. Bove represented Trump in the classified-documents case involving materials found at his Florida estate and in the election-obstruction case stemming from his refusal to accept defeat in 2020. Trump also brought Will Scharf, who defended him in the election-interference case, into the White House. Up to 20 lawyers who previously represented Trump now hold senior positions in the administration.
The placement of loyalists in key positions aimed at exerting greater control over the justice system and federal investigations has coincided with a weakening of these institutions’ authority. In recent months, complaints by federal judges against the Department of Justice have surged, accusing it of failing to comply with court orders or improperly using the system to target political opponents, according to a report published by Reuters. The report also notes that internal oversight and compliance mechanisms have been weakened at the same time.
The report says nearly half of the staff at the Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) have left the agency since Trump returned to the White House. And 17% of the Office of the Inspector General’s staff have also departed. That has led to a drop in internal investigations into misconduct, abuse of power complaints and irregularities committed by the Justice Department.
The politicization — even weaponization — of the Department did not start with this administration but has accelerated during it," Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska said on the Senate floor on Friday, explaining her opposition to Blanche. “I take issue with the handling of the release of the Epstein files; the sweeping immunity protections granted to the President, his family, and their businesses; the statements that have been made to anti-abortion groups; and the repeated targeting of individuals ranging from former administration staff to sitting U.S. Senators.”
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