On a Friday evening in October, 2021, the Justice Department launched into damage-control mode. The Attorney General, Merrick Garland, the Deputy Attorney General, Lisa Monaco, and other senior officials gathered on an emergency conference call to decide how to deal with what they considered out-of-line remarks from President Joe Biden.

Steve Bannon, the former adviser to Donald Trump, had defied a subpoena from the House select committee investigating January 6th. Committee members were weighing whether to refer Bannon to the Justice Department for prosecution. The White House press secretary, Jen Psaki, had ducked commenting on a matter of such delicacy. “That would be up to the Department of Justice, and it would be their purview to determine,” she told reporters. “They’re independent.

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