During his first presidency, Donald Trump had several high-profile clashes with members of his own Department of Justice (DOJ), including former Attorney General Bill Barr and Jeff Sessions. Even ex-FBI Director Christopher Wray, another Trump appointee, resigned in late 2024 rather than face being fired.
But since then, Trump has focused on surrounding himself with loyalists within the DOJ and FBI, including U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi, Deputy U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche, FBI Director Kash Patel, Deputy FBI Director Dan Bongino, and federal prosecutors Jeanine Pirro and Lindsey Halligan.
However, things are not going smoothly for Trump’s loyalists. On December 8, 2024, Alina Habba, one of Trump’s key allies and a former personal lawyer, announced her retirement from her position at the DOJ’s District of New Jersey. Habba’s resignation followed a legal issue: she had been illegally serving in her interim role beyond the 120-day limit. This is just the latest blow to Trump’s efforts to use the DOJ as a tool for revenge against his enemies.
In a December 14 report, Salon’s Garrett Owen highlights the failures of Trump’s chosen attorneys. He notes that many of his handpicked loyalists are struggling to make any real progress in the cases they’ve been assigned.
One example is Lindsey Halligan, a former personal lawyer for Trump, who was tasked with prosecuting high-profile targets like former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James. Despite Halligan’s efforts, a grand jury on December 4 declined to indict James on charges of mortgage fraud.
Owen points out that even though longtime DOJ prosecutors had advised against charging Comey due to lack of evidence, Halligan decided to move forward anyway. But that attempt also ended in failure. “The Justice Department then attempted to indict her for a third time — and the second time in one week — but they failed again,” Owen writes.
Owen further notes that with these setbacks, the DOJ is now facing a lack of clear leadership. There is no lawfully serving U.S. attorney in place, and questionable cases are piling up.
The legal challenges Trump had hoped would be a high-profile display of political revenge are instead becoming a circus of failed attempts and judicial backlash. Federal judges are reportedly growing frustrated with the DOJ’s approach, especially since many of these cases appear to be manipulated for political purposes.
Trump’s strategy of using loyalists to settle personal scores is not delivering the results he hoped for. Instead of a decisive legal victory, he now finds himself facing a string of failures that threaten to undermine his use of the DOJ as a political weapon.