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WASHINGTON, May 17 (Reuters) – Some of Donald Trump’s allies are assembling proposals to curtail the Justice Department’s independence and turn the nation’s top law enforcement body into an attack dog for conservative causes, nine people involved in the effort told Reuters.
If successful, the overhaul could represent one of the most consequential actions of a second Trump presidency given the Justice Department’s role in protecting democratic institutions and upholding the rule of law.
The plan is essentially twofold, according to the nine people interviewed by Reuters, some of whom requested anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.
First: flood the Justice Department with stalwart conservatives unlikely to say “no” to controversial orders from the White House. Second: restructure the department so key decisions are concentrated in the hands of administration loyalists rather than career bureaucrats.
The FBI – which many Republicans see as biased against them – would have new constraints on its authority, with many of its responsibilities shifted to other law enforcement agencies, those people said.
“Trump feels that the DoJ has institutional problems,” said Steve Bannon, a prominent Trump ally who was prosecuted by the Justice Department and convicted for contempt of Congress. “It’s not just personnel: you do need to purge the DoJ, but you also need to reform it.”
In response to questions from Reuters, the Trump campaign pointed to a December statement from co-campaign managers Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita.
“Unless a message is coming directly from President Trump or an authorized member of his campaign team, no aspect of future presidential staffing or policy announcements should be deemed official,” they said.
The campaign itself has few full-time policy staffers. Trump and his team are in frequent contact with outside groups, such as those formulating recommendations on the Justice Department.
With Trump holding a lead in most swing states likely to decide November’s election, the former president’s advisers may have a shot at putting their ideas into practice.
Trump’s promises to remodel the Justice Department have been well documented, but less attention has been given to identifying the specific measures his allies and advisers are advocating.
Two prominent Trump allies told Reuters they support eliminating the FBI’s general counsel, an office that enraged Republicans during Trump’s 2017-2021 term for its role in approving an inquiry into contacts between his 2016 campaign and Russian officials.
The general counsel provides legal advice to FBI employees regarding ongoing probes and other matters. Closing it would force the bureau to receive legal guidance from people closer to Trump’s attorney general in the chain-of-command and limit the FBI’s ability to conduct investigations without close political oversight, according to several Trump supporters and legal professionals with knowledge of the department’s workings.
Biden campaign spokesperson Ammar Mousa said in a statement that Trump and his allies “were putting Trump’s own revenge and retribution ahead of what is best for America.” The FBI did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Trump’s allies argue that, as head of the executive branch, the president should have broad powers to command and oversee the Justice Department as he or she sees fit.
Most Democrats and even some Republicans reject that view. They say the Justice Department requires an unusual amount of independence because it’s responsible for administering justice in a non-partisan fashion. At times, that mandate includes investigating a president’s close political allies.
“There are always enforcement disputes … That is standard politics,” said Kristy Parker, a former federal prosecutor who is now at Protect Democracy, a non-profit legal advocacy organization.
“What is not standard politics is somebody basically coming in and saying we are going to jettison the idea that the Department of Justice should have a wall of separation between it and the personal political agenda of the president.”
Many Trump allies making these proposals are affiliated with a consortium of conservative think tanks known as “Project 2025”, which has been making detailed plans for a second Trump presidency. In a statement to Reuters, Project 2025 said it could not speak for the Trump campaign.
These allies are also combing through federal regulations for novel ways to bring stalwart conservatives into the Justice Department at the start of a potential Trump term, according to two people with knowledge of those deliberations.
These detailed preparations contrast with Trump’s chaotic 2016 transition, which involved relatively little policy planning, several people involved have acknowledged.
The former president spent the opening months of his first administration butting heads with his attorney general and FBI director, both of whom angered the president by failing to halt inquiries into his 2016 campaign.
It’s an experience, according to several associates who speak to Trump, that he’s determined not to repeat.
Trump currently faces a total of 88 charges in four criminal cases – two of which have been brought by the DoJ – over efforts to subvert the 2020 election, retaining classified documents after leaving office, and alleged efforts to cover up a hush money payment to a porn star.
The 77-year-old denies wrongdoing in all the cases and points to the charges as proof the Justice Department is biased against him. The department denies this and says it conducts all of its probes impartially.
Attorney General Merrick Garland on Thursday deplored what he called “a series of unprecedented and frankly unfounded attacks on the Justice Department.”
While promising to establish a non-partisan justice system, Trump has called for many of his political opponents to be arrested. Last June, he pledged in a post on Truth Social to have a “special prosecutor” probe the 81-year-old Biden.
Some allies stop short of embracing Trump’s rhetoric of revenge. But they agree Trump should have greater control over the Justice Department and FBI.
“Whenever you have power centers … that have enormous resources, coercive power and investigative tools at their disposal, and they are presumed to be independent of any control down the chain of command from the president, that is a recipe for abuse of power,” said Steve Bradbury, a former Justice official who briefly served as Trump’s acting Transportation Secretary.
In interviews with Reuters, Bradbury and Gene Hamilton, a senior Justice Department official under Trump, both endorsed the measure to eliminate the FBI’s general counsel.
They said they do not speak for Trump, but both are contributing ideas to Project 2025. Hamilton is a trusted lieutenant of Stephen Miller, one of Trump’s closest policy advisers. Miller did not respond to requests for comment.
Both Bradbury and Hamilton also endorsed changing the Justice Department’s chain of command so the FBI director reports to a pair of politically appointed assistant attorneys general.
The director currently reports to the deputy attorney general, a more senior official who in practice is too busy and has too large a portfolio to oversee and guide FBI probes, Bradbury said.
Bradbury and other legal experts said that change could be done without congressional authorization. He said these steps are necessary to ensure that the bureau’s enforcement priorities align with the White House’s policy preferences. Detractors say these measures will undermine the independence of the Justice Department and the FBI.
Some Trump allies and advisers also want to narrow dramatically the types of crimes the FBI can investigate, arguing the bureau’s focus is too sprawling for political appointees to oversee effectively.
In a publicly available policy memo, which was published last July but received little attention, Bradbury said other law enforcement agencies, like the Drug Enforcement Administration, could take the lead where their jurisdiction overlaps with the bureau.
The remnants of the bureau, Bradbury wrote, could focus exclusively on “large-scale crimes and threats to national security” that require a federal response.
As important as restructuring the department, Trump allies argue, is ensuring it is stacked with allies unlikely to slow-walk Trump’s demands.
Trump has publicly embraced a potential executive order known as “Schedule F” that would give him the power to replace thousands of civil servants with conservative allies.
That would allow his administration to expand the number of political appointments in the Justice Department, which sits in the low hundreds, though allies have not settled on precisely how many positions could be created.
Some Trump allies at Project 2025 also want to expand the use of the Intergovernmental Personnel Act, an obscure statute that allows departments to bring in outside experts with the help of non-profits, several people with knowledge of those deliberations said.
AFSCME Local 2830, a union representing some Justice Department employees, said in a statement to Reuters it is “concerned that Trump officials will fill positions to further their partisan agenda instead of impartially carrying out federal laws and regulations and upholding the Constitution.”
With the right structure and personnel in place, Trump will be better prepared to pursue conservative policy goals, his supporters say. While his allies have floated dozens of ideas, many relate broadly to how the federal government polices civil rights.
For instance, Hamilton argued that the Justice Department should examine whether corporations are discriminating against whites by instituting programs designed to boost the number of people of color in the workplace.
The department could derive its authority, he said, from the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which bars hiring or compensation decisions based on “race” or “sex.”
Hamilton also called for radically curtailing court-monitored settlements known as “consent decrees” between the Justice Department and local police departments, which are used to help curb civil rights abuses against people of color, the disabled and the mentally ill.
Conservatives portray these agreements as heavy-handed federal actions that interfere with local agencies trying to fight crime. Rights advocates say such arguments ignore centuries of documented inequities.
Christy Lopez, a Georgetown professor who formerly served as a Justice Department Civil Rights Division official, said the department reduced its police accountability work during Trump’s first term.
“There’s no reason to believe that his administration won’t double down,” she said.
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Reporting by Gram Slattery, Sarah N. Lynch and Andrew Goudsward; Editing by Ross Colvin and Daniel Flynn
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Washington-based correspondent covering campaigns and Congress. Previously posted in Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo and Santiago, Chile, and has reported extensively throughout Latin America. Co-winner of the 2021 Reuters Journalist of the Year Award in the business coverage category for a series on corruption and fraud in the oil industry. He was born in Massachusetts and graduated from Harvard College.
Sarah N. Lynch is the lead reporter for Reuters covering the U.S. Justice Department out of Washington, D.C. During her time on the beat, she has covered everything from the Mueller report and the use of federal agents to quell protesters in the wake of George Floyd’s murder, to the rampant spread of COVID-19 in prisons and the department’s prosecutions following the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
There’s been much talk about the gravity and impact of this month’s Supreme Court finding granting a former U.S. president presumptive immunity for “official” acts, and absolute immunity when exercising “core constitutional powers.” In the oral arguments preceding this decision, and in the dissenting opinion of Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the justices raised the scenario of a president getting away with ordering Navy SEALS to kill a political opponent, using the military to stage a coup or accepting a bribe in exchange for a pardon. Chief Justice John Roberts called his colleagues’ remonstrations “extreme hypotheticals” and” fearmongering.”
Chief Justice John Roberts called his colleagues’ remonstrations “extreme hypotheticals” and” fearmongering.”
There was nothing extreme in Sotomayor’s concerns, and her fears were justified. As a national security analyst, with 25 years as an FBI agent, I know we don’t need to engage in hypotheticals to lay out this ruling’s likely consequences. All we need to understand what a criminally immune Trump might do, with even one executive branch agency given carte blanche, is to remind ourselves what the nation learned about the FBI during the 1970s.
The great unraveling started in 1971, when a group of peace activists broke into a small FBI office in Media, Pa., and stole whatever files they could carry out. They suspected that the FBI was spying on anti-Vietnam war protestors, especially on college campuses. The files confirmed their suspicions, but unsure of what exactly they were looking at, they handed some of the files to reporters. One journalist, then-NBC reporter Carl Stern, was intrigued by a code word in the files: “COINTELPRO.” It would take years of dogged reporting, lawsuits to uncover documents and a number of congressional committee inquiries to fully learn the details of FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover’s secret counterintelligence program to covertly address anything and anyone deemed to be a threat by Hoover or the presidents he served under.
For over a year, a special Senate committee chaired by Idaho Democrat Frank Church conducted 800 interviews, demanded documents and held public and closed-door hearings. What they learned shocked the nation. The Church Committee and other investigations confirmed that the FBI, the CIA and the NSA had been unlawfully spying on American citizens.
The FBI, with the approval of Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, and later with the encouragement of President Lyndon Johnson, illegally wiretapped Martin Luther King Jr. and other civil rights leaders. The FBI sent a letter to King, using details uncovered in the wiretap, essentially blackmailing King and suggesting he kill himself. There were countless other “black bag jobs” where the FBI, without court authorization, broke into people’s homes, took evidence, opened and read mail, and planted microphones — all outside the law, because someone in power deemed those American citizens to pose some kind of threat.
Hoover claimed the Black Panther Party was “the greatest threat to internal security of the United States.” (It wasn’t.)
In 1968 and into the 1970s, Hoover claimed the Black Panther Party was “the greatest threat to internal security of the United States.” (It wasn’t.) Hoover discussed the Black Panthers with then-President Richard Nixon and got the green light to go after them, when, as Nixon directed, “you sort of had the scent of the smell of a national conspiracy thing. You know, the kind of thing like the Panthers, and all that … ” The FBI developed an informant to penetrate the Panthers’ Illinois chapter. In the evening of Dec. 3, 1969, the informant drugged Fred Hampton, one of the chapter’s rising leaders. Chicago police officers, coordinating with the bureau, raided Hampton’s apartment and fatally shot him as he slept.
Unsurprisingly, these sorts of actions did not stop at the Panthers. Nixon ordered the FBI to unlawfully wiretap members of the media without benefit of lawful court orders, simply because Nixon didn’t like those reporters. And, during the Watergate scandal, he ordered the CIA to tell the FBI to end their investigation into the illegal break-in directed by Nixon’s campaign.
Remember, it was Nixon who infamously said during an interview, “When the president does it, that means it is not illegal.” Nixon’s assertion was wrong back in the 1970s. Yet, with this month’s court ruling on absolute immunity, an American president can make that declaration with a straight face. If a president is acting within his Constitutional powers, they can tell the FBI to do almost anything to suppress any “threat” — real or imagined, political or not.
According to a Reuters report, Trump’s allies are already planning to give their candidate direct control of DOJ and the FBI so that they will no longer function independent of the White House. “Two prominent Trump allies told Reuters they support eliminating the FBI’s general counsel” — the office that flashes a red light whenever the bureau is about to do something unlawful. If that red light is removed, there’d be nothing standing between a president and a crime spree.
Do Sotomayor’s hypotheticals seem “extreme” now? They shouldn’t, because we’ve already “been there, done that” as a nation.
The Church Committee’s findings resulted in numerous regulations and policies that established guardrails to prevent the FBI and other intelligence agencies from unlawfully spying on Americans. The committee also established the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court to ensure that federal judges approve all national security wiretaps and covert search warrants. Today, a president could tell the FBI to ignore the formalities of the FISA court and simply spy on his enemies — without fear of criminal liability.
Do Sotomayor’s hypotheticals seem “extreme” now? They shouldn’t, because we’ve already “been there, done that” as a nation. If none of this troubles you, you’re not paying attention. Because some day, a president you don’t support can designate you, your friends, your employer or your favorite organization or news platform a threat. That president could direct the FBI to spy on those entities and people, and you won’t know about it until it’s too late. It’s happened before, and it can happen again.
A Russian spy plot that sought to sow “panic and terror” in the West has been revealed in a joint-investigation.
Leaked emails from Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) obtained by independent Russian site The Insider and the German newspaper Der Spiegel reveal an elaborate plan masterminded in 2022, dubbed “Project Kylo.”
Just months into Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, in May 2022, a group of SVR employees unveiled the operation at a private roundtable discussion in the Russian Senate. Leaked communications showed that Moscow sought to sow disinformation campaigns in the West about Ukraine, “stoke existential fears and create animosity to [Ukrainian] refugees fleeing the war.”
Newsweek couldn’t independently verify the claims made in the investigation and has contacted Russia’s Foreign Ministry for comment by email.
Russian President Vladimir Putin is pictured in Astana, Kazakhstan, on July 4, 2024. A Russian spy plot which sought to sow “panic and terror” in the West has been revealed in a joint investigation. Russian President Vladimir Putin is pictured in Astana, Kazakhstan, on July 4, 2024. A Russian spy plot which sought to sow “panic and terror” in the West has been revealed in a joint investigation. SERGEI GUNEYEV/POOL/AFP/Getty Images
The proposal, first put forward by Mikhail Kolesov, a 45-year-old SVR officer, was designed to “inject a new scheme into the Kremlin’s propaganda approach” that was “systematic, targeted and active, offensive in nature,” according to the investigation.
The SVR officer suggested that instead of pushing typical pro-Russian arguments about the conflict, the operation should “deepen internal contradictions between the ruling elites” in the West, including in the U.S., which is known among the special services as Russia’s “main adversary.”
This involved SVR recruits creating fake advertisements disguised as news headlines, fake NGOs and websites, publishing manipulative content on social media platforms including YouTube, and hiring individuals to take part in protests in the West with the aim of filming them and disseminating the content online.
At a time when some Western politicians were suggesting that Ukrainian refugees who fled the war were becoming burdens on state resources, SVR recruits attempted to exploit the situation by creating fake news websites and running articles with headlines such as: “How Ukrainians are robbing Germany of economic prosperity.”
Hundreds of thousands of social media accounts attempted to direct internet users to these sites by publishing images with “sensationalistic slogans” such as “Germany is sinking into homelessness” and “Even bread is a luxury” and linking back to them.
The “leitmotif of our cognitive campaign in the [Western] countries is proposed to be the instilling of the strongest emotion in the human psyche—fear,” one leaked document said. “It is precisely the fear for the future, uncertainty about tomorrow, the inability to make long-term plans, the unclear fate of children and future generations. The cultivation of these triggers floods an individual’s subconscious with panic and terror.”
Do you have a tip on a world news story that Newsweek should be covering? Do you have a question about the Russia-Ukraine war? Let us know via worldnews@newsweek.com.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Biden, 81, said any candidates who doubt his ability should challenge him at the Democratic National Convention in August – an effort that stands no chance of success unless he lets the delegates he won in primaries this year consider other candidates.
“The bottom line here is that I am not going anywhere,” Biden said in a phone call he placed to MSNBC’s Morning Joe program. He repeated that message to donors on a private call later in the day, according to a source on the call.
Several senior House Democrats called for Biden to drop out in a Sunday phone call, media outlets reported. Other lawmakers said they supported his candidacy.
“President Joe Biden is the nominee and has been selected by millions of voters across this country,” Representative Steven Horsford, chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, said on social media. Black voters are a critical part of Democrats’ base of support.
In his letter to Democrats, Biden said he was aware of their concerns but said it was time to put them aside.
On MSNBC, Biden sounded a defiant note against wealthy donors who have called for him to drop out. “I don’t care what the millionaires think,” he said.
If Republicans were to capture the White House and both houses of Congress, Trump would face few constraints on his ability to push through major policy changes.
However, that poll also found that none of his possible replacements fared better in a matchup against Trump. The poll found Biden and Trump tied at 40% each.
Biden’s troubles appear to be increasing the number of races Democrats need to worry about in November.
Internal party polling shows that New Mexico and Virginia became more competitive following the debate, according to a source familiar with the findings, and the nonpartisan Center for Politics at the University of Virginia last week shifted its ratings on the states of Michigan and Minnesota to make each slightly more favorable for Republicans.
Together, those states will host a half-dozen of the most competitive House races.
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Reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt, Jeff Mason, Nandita Bose, Steve Holland, Doina Chiacu, Moira Warburton, Richard Cowan and Andrea Shalal; Writing by Andy Sullivan; Editing by Scott Malone and Howard Goller
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A Republican lawmaker on Tuesday took the latest right-wing conspiracy theory about President Joe Biden to a fizzy new level by claiming he would be “jacked up” on soda for this week’s debate against Donald Trump.
“Trump’s team should not underestimate Joe Biden and his team’s ability to, y’know, whether they’re gonna jack him up on Mountain Dew or whatever it is,” Rep. Eric Burlison (R-Mo.) said on Fox Business. “Look, the State of the Union this year, he had a lot of energy for about an hour. Or an hour and a half.”
Rep. Eric Burlison (R-MO) speculates Biden could be jacked up on “Mountain Dew” to get through the presidential debate Thursday. pic.twitter.com/bvUo4eTx2l
— The Recount (@therecount) June 25, 2024
The Mountain Dew line may have been a reference to the Will Ferrell movie “Talladega Nights.”
However, Trump and his allies ― including multiple Fox News personalities ― have suggested Biden will take something, possibly caffeine, to get “jacked up” for the debate.
Trump has even called for a drug test before the event.
These claims come after Trump supporters have spent years attacking Biden’s cognition, while ignoring growing concerns that Trump’s own brainpower has diminished.
Burlison’s comments fell flat on X as critics took the fizz out of the attack:
It really wasn’t that long ago. I was out of Congress, and I’d go on @MariaBartiromo’s TV show regularly. We’d have normal conversations about policy. She was smart. Serious. And sane. She was the opposite of Hannity. And then Trump happened. Now it feels like a lifetime ago.👇 https://t.co/941RRPvqIt
— Joe Walsh (@WalshFreedom) June 25, 2024
So after claiming “Sleepy Joe” Biden has dementia and putting out numerous AI videos, now Fox News and the GOP claims that the Wizard of Oz is in the White House basement cooking up a special “dosage” of something–which could be Mountain Dew–to “jack him up” on Thursday.
— Victoria Brownworth (@VABVOX) June 26, 2024
loons https://t.co/GDprgljKqT
— John Harwood (@JohnJHarwood) June 25, 2024
Mt Dew is an antidote to Dementia? Wow, who knew?
— Herr Studt #EverGrateful 🇩🇪 #BoilerUp 🇺🇦 #RDP (@Hoosier47906) June 25, 2024
If drinking caffeine made someone a brilliant and skilled orator, I want my Toastmasters membership money back. Clearly the 7 years I was a member I should have just stuck to caffeine instead of practice and supportive people, right? What a goon. https://t.co/O8aXcb2SUd
— Schu (@SquirrelyShoe) June 25, 2024
If Trump was good at debating it wouldn’t matter one way or the other. They know he isn’t and continue to make excuses as to why Trump will not do well. All of this looks bad for Trump, not Biden.
— 🌸 🐾 A to the Z 🐾🌸 (@A_tothe_Z_Amber) June 25, 2024
Yup. Go to any Open Mic Night at a comedy club. You’ll find wannabe comedians lined around the block for their chance to get jacked on Mountain Dew. Only the lucky few get their can of Dew, of course. But they’re hilarious! Ask Seinfield. He’d be nowhere today without the Dew. https://t.co/k4dQKYMQTv
— Rory Flynn (@rorycflynn808) June 25, 2024
It is evident that they do not anticipate the debate to go well for Trump.
— 𝐂𝐡𝐢𝐝𝐢 (@ChidiNwatu) June 25, 2024
I wonder if doctors have considered “jacking up” end-stage dementia patients on Mountain Dew.
Can you imagine what it would mean to those suffering and their families? A miracle drug! https://t.co/GT1ADnYSFg— Shannon Ragland (@JuryReporter) June 25, 2024
