Katelynn Richardson
President-elect Donald Trump’s unexpected picks for Department of Justice (DOJ) leadership roles send a clear message to the establishment: this term, his agenda will not be held captive by career bureaucrats.
After being burned by his own choices in his first administration and prosecuted by the Biden-Harris DOJ, his decision to nominate Republican Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz as attorney general and his defense attorneys for the other top slots reflects Trump’s desire to be surrounded by people who fully support his vision for the department — and who are willing to stand up to bureaucratic forces working to undermine his efforts.
“Gaetz is clearly an outsider and disruptor, and that’s the point,” former federal prosecutor Andrew Cherkasky told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Gaetz is “exactly what President Trump promised for the DOJ during his campaign, namely to end the department’s left-leaning focus on lawfare, censorship, and election interference.” He’s “a loyalist who is often in Trump’s orbit” that won’t put up the same resistance as former Attorney General William Barr, Cherkasky said.
Article III project senior counsel Will Chamberlain wrote on X the Gaetz pick is best understood as “a statement by Trump that it’s not 2016 anymore and there will be no internal coup against the sitting President.”
Trump’s surprise announcement of Gaetz drew its share of criticism — and uncertainty about his viability as a nominee.
Former federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy wrote in the National Review that Nathan Wade, who worked on Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ case against Trump before a judge’s ruling forced him to step down over the pair’s romantic relationship, would “have a better chance of getting confirmed” as attorney general than Gaetz.
“Trump needs a strong, experienced hand who is widely respected for his or her legal acumen and bureaucratic know-how — specifically in the Justice Department, which is certain to chew up and spit out an outsider who doesn’t know how the place works and how veteran adversaries can sabotage a novice,” McCarthy said, suggesting Gaetz is not qualified for the position because he was “among the leading proponents of the effort to reverse the results of the 2020 presidential election.”
Gaetz is the “100,000-volt option” that both shows Trump values an outsider and sets the stage for “one of the most intense confirmation fights in congressional history,” George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley wrote Thursday.
“The nomination may have a curious effect on the nomination fights,” he said on X. “It will likely draw fire and resources from other nominees. Indeed, other nominees may appear less controversial by comparison.”
Cherkasky told the DCNF Trump’s relative silence in response to Republican South Dakota Sen. John Thune’s election as Senate majority leader indicates he feels “confident he will be able to secure his pick,” noting he probably would have raised more of a “public outcry” if Thune hadn’t promised support.
Trump’s selections for the three positions below attorney general also signal loyalty played a key role in his decision.
The attorneys who spent this year defending Trump from criminal prosecution have now also been named to top positions at the DOJ. Trump nominated Todd Blanch to be deputy attorney general, Emil Bove as principal associate deputy attorney general and Dean John Sauer — who presented oral arguments in Trump’s presidential immunity appeal before the Supreme Court — as solicitor general.
These Trump picks were met with greater enthusiasm from some conservative attorneys.
“John Sauer, who is President-elect Trump’s selection for Solicitor General, is a brilliant lawyer with rich experience,” wrote Ethics and Public Policy center constitutional scholar Ed Whelan, who expressed disapproval of Gaetz’s nomination. “Exactly the caliber of pick we should hope for in every senior DOJ position.”
Sauer also argued a major case challenging the Biden administration’s censorship efforts before the 5th Circuit.
Former Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who served in Trump’s first administration, celebrated Blanche and Bove but didn’t mention Gaetz.
“Critics of unfit appointees should applaud when the President picks qualified people with integrity,” Rosenstein wrote Friday on X. “As Deputy AG, Todd Blanche and Emil Bove won’t allow partisanship to sway DOJ prosecutions. The rule of law prevails. Qui Pro Domina Justitia Sequitur.”
‘Savvy And Bold’ Leadership
Beyond the top positions, Trump’s allies are concerned about opposition from career prosecutors who are tasked with carrying out leadership directives.
“If the president wants to deport illegal aliens, secure the border, ban race-based ‘affirmative action’ and DEI, investigate antisemitism, halt Big Tech censorship, grant pardons and commutations to Jan 6th defendants, he has every right to expect that these perfectly lawful policies are implemented, and it is absolutely unacceptable for career employees to seek to thwart this policy agenda,” attorney Mark Paoletta, who is helping with Trump’s transition, wrote on X Wednesday.
Article III Project founder Mike Davis wrote on X that DOJ employees’ job is to “carry out his lawful orders.”
Career prosecutors are worried they’ll be driven out of the department, Politico reported on Sunday, days before Trump announced Gaetz’s nomination.
Stacey Young, co-founder of the DOJ Gender Equality Network and civil rights division attorney, told the outlet many federal employees are “terrified that we’ll be replaced with partisan loyalists.”
Another DOJ attorney anonymously told Politico department lawyers are “losing their minds.”
“The fear is that career leadership and career employees everywhere are either going to leave or they’re going to be driven out,” the attorney said.
Along with bringing two criminal cases against Trump, the Biden-Harris DOJ prosecuted hundreds of individuals for their behavior at the Capitol on Jan. 6 using an obstruction statute designed to target financial crimes. The Supreme Court held in June the DOJ interpreted the statute too broadly.
The DOJ’s Civil Rights Division has repeatedly used the Freedom of Access to Clinics (FACE) Act to prosecute pro-life activists.
Paoletta noted the constitution invests executive power with the president, not “unelected lawyers who are to assist him in the exercise of that power.”
“Any civil servant who claims their actions to resist these policy initiatives will be doing so to uphold the rule of law is being dishonest,” he wrote. “They are undermining the rule of law and subverting democracy and should be fired.”
John Malcolm, director of the Heritage Foundation’s Meese Center for Legal and Judicial Studies, told the DCNF career prosecutors dissatisfied with the department’s direction should “consider leaving and joining the private sector.”
“The one thing they should not, and cannot, do is to try to undermine the directives of their superiors within the department,” he said. “After all, they were not elected by the American people or appointed by the President to serve in his administration. Anyone who attempts to sabotage the President’s agenda from within should be severely reprimanded and reassigned or fired for insubordination.”
One reason the department needs “savvy and bold” leadership is because career employees who disagree with leadership sometimes “find quiet ways to undermine the work,” Jesse Panuccio, who previously served as the third-ranking official in Trump’s DOJ, told the DCNF.
“If someone’s not willing to do the job, there’s plenty of meat and potatoes work at the Department of Justice that they can be reassigned to,” Panuccio said.
“If they want to be activists, there are lots of think tanks and 501(c)(3)s and law firms they can go work at in Washington,” he continued. “They do not need to be on the payroll of the taxpayers who just elected this president and endorsed the policies and people he’s going to appoint.”
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