Trump searches for his attorney general as Justice Department officials worry about chaos and retribution

(CNN) — From his seaside Florida resort, Donald Trump is holding a casting call to fill the toughest job in Washington: attorney general.

While Trump ended on bad terms with many Cabinet members, no post was more the focus of his cauldron of chaos than the leader of the Justice Department, where he fired one attorney general and soured on another. He also fired an FBI director, and two US attorneys in Manhattan, who oversaw investigations associated with Trump.

Some Justice Department employees express fear that Trump’s return will mark a loss of traditional independence from the White House and damage to the department’s work. Current and former Justice officials anticipate eventual departures in some parts of the department and employees being sidelined and forced out.

And people close to the president-elect, such as conservative lawyer Mark Paoletta, have issued a stark warning to career officials that they’ll be watched closely.

“If these career DOJ employees won’t implement President Trump’s program in good faith, they should leave. Those employees who engage in so-called ‘resistance’ against the duly-elected President’s lawful agenda would be subverting American democracy,” Paoletta said Monday on X.

Trump and his team have cited the attorney general as the most important Cabinet position if he is to make good on campaign promises, which include immigration-related executive orders and investigations of his political enemies. The Justice Department is also charged with defending administration actions in court, covering issues from health care to the environment to gun control.

“The most important person in government, I think, after the president for this cycle is going to be the attorney general,” JD Vance, Trump’s running mate, told ABC in October.

The target list

Justice Department employees including special counsel Jack Smith are among those on the list of possible targets for political retribution, as are lawyers and investigators associated with Trump-related and January 6 probes, Trump and some of his supporters have said.

Employees at the FBI, the focus of Trump’s ire for, among other things, carrying out the lawful search of his Mar-a-Lago resort during the investigation into the mishandling of classified documents, are also bracing for upheaval. Trump has said he plans to fire Christopher Wray, whom he appointed in 2017 after firing his predecessor, James Comey.

FBI officials and some Trump transition officials expect Wray to resign instead of waiting to be fired by the incoming president, people briefed on the matter say. First, officials are trying to determine whether Trump plans to stick to his firing vow.

The last time Trump slammed Wray on his Truth Social platform came after a thwarted assassination attempt against the former president. Trump said that Wray “knows nothing” about crime in the United States, adding, “No wonder the once storied FBI has lost the confidence of America!”

Privately, Trump has been more cordial to the FBI agents he has interacted with related to threats against him, people briefed on the matter said.

“FBI is great. The people there, not the top people, the people, the real people, the people that work there,” he told podcaster Joe Rogan in an interview days before the election. “It’s like the real generals that I told you about that defeated ISIS in record time. The FBI guys are great. I’ll bet you I’d be at 95% in the FBI.”

No limits on the president

Adding to the concerns inside the federal government: The Supreme Court’s immunity ruling this summer expanded a president’s legal protections in his dealings with the Justice Department.

In his first term, Trump complained that his own appointees were thwarting his push for investigations of political rivals – including former President Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden.

“The handcuffs are going to be off now,” one Justice official said.

Two other officials told CNN that there was particular concern among department employees who were part of high-profile investigations – the Capitol riot prosecutions and Smith’s cases. Those employees worry about potential legal costs they’ll incur should Trump follow through on his “retribution” plans.

One Justice employee told CNN that people inside the department are “safety planning.” Another told CNN that some are considering whether they should hire lawyers.

A third official told CNN that there is a “general sense of depression” among attorneys who worked on legal cases that some Republican lawmakers have spoken out against, saying those attorneys are concerned their years of work will be “flushed down the drain.”

Other officials note that Trump has always struggled to understand the mechanics of the department; and that appointing special counsels, which Trump has said he wants to pursue a Biden investigation, isn’t routine.

Investigations without evidence are likely to run into trouble with judges and juries, current and former officials say. An easier course would be to use the department to turn over materials for congressional investigations.

Past as prologue

Trump’s first term was bookended by Justice Department lawyers refusing his orders.

In January 2017, just 11 days into his term, acting Attorney General Sally Yates, an Obama appointee, ordered department lawyers to not defend Trump’s executive order banning entry to the US by citizens of seven majority-Muslim countries. Trump immediately fired Yates.

In January 2021, three days before Trump supporters attacked the US Capitol and days before he left office, Trump-appointed lawyers at the department threatened to resign en masse if he appointed as attorney general a loyalist who was willing to use the department to support his false claims of a stolen election. Trump backed down.

The years in between featured a series of episodes in which Trump lashed out at his attorneys general.

Jeff Sessions, an early Trump ally as a senator from Alabama, quickly earned his wrath in early 2017 when he recused himself from the investigation of Trump’s 2016 campaign and ties to Russia. Trump also demanded the Justice Department investigate Hillary Clinton, who was the subjects of “lock her up” chants during the 2016 campaign.

“Attorney General Jeff Sessions has taken a VERY weak position on Hillary Clinton crimes,” he wrote in a Twitter post in July 2017.

Sessions that November did order a review of an earlier probe of Clinton’s business interests and asked prosecutors to recommend whether to open a full investigation. Matthew Whitaker, Sessions’ then-chief of staff and now floated by allies for Trump’s attorney general pick, sent the order to US Attorney John Huber, according to records released by the department. Huber’s probe ended up not finding evidence to warrant a full investigation.

Rod Rosenstein, Sessions’ deputy attorney general, also became the target of Trump’s attacks for appointing a special counsel to oversee the probe.

Former Attorney General William Barr, who said he took the job because he believed Trump was being treated unfairly, didn’t fare much better.

Trump told Fox Business in 2020 that Barr should indict Obama, Biden and others because of the Russia investigation.

“Unless Bill Barr indicts these people for crimes, the greatest political crime in the history of our country, then we’re going to get little satisfaction. Unless I win and we’ll just have to go – because I won’t forget it. But these people should be indicted,” Trump said.

Barr’s final break with Trump in 2020 occurred over Trump’s vote fraud claims, which Barr has said were “bullsh*t.” He resigned in December 2020 after publicly disputing Trump’s fraud claims.

Barr, in a 2022 interview with the Hoover Institution, described his frustration with Trump.

“No one wanted him to win more than me, but I wasn’t gonna allow the criminal justice process to be converted into a political tool to help him and rush out prosecutions as a political ploy because loyalty, loyalty is ultimately to the Constitution. Loyalty is not personal political loyalty to Trump,” Barr said.

This year, Barr endorsed Trump for a second term.

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