U.S. President Donald Trump looks on as U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi speaks during a press conference about deploying federal law enforcement agents in Washington to bolster the local police presence, in the Press Briefing Room at the White House, in Washington D.C., U.S., August 11, 2025. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst/File Photo

With his pardon powers and his authority over the AG an American president already has the power to abuse the federal justice system, says New York Times columnist David French. But now Trump has changed the stakes.

French said he disagrees with the claim that the attorney general is the nation’s chief law enforcement officer. That distinction instead belongs to the man “who can fire her the instant she fails to follow his directions.” As a result, there was always a danger of politicized justice with a president providing pardons for his friends and allies and pursuing his enemies with abandon.

To counter the possibility of an “imperial presidency,” the Department of Justice, acting under presidents of both parties, had created a series of rules and procedures designed to ensure fairness and impartiality. Until recently, French said the F.B.I and the Department of Justice clung to standards, like not publicly announcing a suspect’s investigation and taking steps to protect the identities of people who might be relevant to a criminal case.

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French said compare that to F.B.I. Director Kash Patel “tweeting triumphantly” amid reports of a search of former adviser John Bolton’s home that “NO ONE is above the law” and Vice President JD Vance confirming Bolton to be under investigation.

In addition, statutes and regulations protect prosecutors and F.B.I. agents from arbitrary or partisan dismissal, but “Donald Trump has blown through all of this,” said French, granting clemency “to the most violent rioters on Jan. 6, including people found guilty of seditious conspiracy” and launching a purge against dozens of prosecutors charged with investigating and prosecuting the rioters.

Trump’s Justice Department also dropped charges against the mayor of New York because the case was interfering with the mayor’s enforcement of Trump’s immigration priorities — a move a judge said “smacks of a bargain.”

Recently, Trump also claimed Democrat Party funder George Soros and his son should be charged under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act.

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“But this is what authoritarian regimes do,” said French. “They don’t simply declare that they’re prosecuting political opponents, they go ahead and do it — through trumped-up charges or selective prosecution.”

French quoted conservative Harvard Law School professor Jack Goldsmith, who said at a recent panel that Trump dropped “an atomic bomb dropped on the [justice] department.”

“We are watching Donald Trump break the Department of Justice right before our eyes,” agreed French. “The atomic bomb has detonated … but until a decisive number of Americans reject the man and his movement, he will continue to wreck American justice, and not even the Constitution can stand in his way.”

Read the New York Times report at this link.