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On February 11, 2026, Attorney General Pam Bondi sat before the House Judiciary Committee and defended what dozens of career prosecutors say is the President taking more control over prosecutions. Democrats presented evidence of prosecutions chosen because the President wanted them, not because the evidence supported them. Republicans accused the previous administration of using the Justice Department to unfairly target conservatives. Right now, only an unwritten rule stops the President from ordering prosecutions of his enemies. What happens when a President ignores that rule?
A federal judge later threw out both indictments, finding that the prosecutor who brought them had been appointed illegally, breaking federal law.
That’s the pattern—public presidential direction of specific prosecutions, followed by the removal of prosecutors who resist, followed by indictments that courts later find legally deficient. This is different from normal political pressure, which has always existed.
What makes this moment different is how clearly it shows what controls the Justice Department. For fifty years, Americans have assumed the Justice Department operates independently from White House political control. That assumption rests almost entirely on unwritten rules and the goodwill of officials in power to respect boundaries that aren’t written into law.
When Nixon Tried to Stop an Investigation
The modern idea of DOJ independence was born on October 20, 1973. President Richard Nixon, facing investigation by Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox over Watergate, ordered Attorney General Elliot Richardson to fire Cox. Richardson resigned rather than obey. So did his deputy, William Ruckelshaus. Only Solicitor General Robert Bork complied.
But Congress left the broader question unresolved. The Justice Department prosecutes thousands of cases every year. Regular federal prosecutors handle thousands of cases. They all technically report to the President through the Attorney General. How would independence work for them?
The answer came from what Presidents actually did, not from written rules. Starting in the Ford and Carter administrations, Presidents established informal guidelines restricting their own contact with DOJ officials about specific cases. By the Reagan and Bush years, these guidelines became accepted practice: Presidents could discuss general law enforcement policy with their Attorneys General, but direct involvement in specific prosecutions was considered improper.
When Merrick Garland became Attorney General in 2021, he formalized this custom by issuing an explicit memo limiting how the White House talks to the Justice Department regarding pending investigations. Garland wasn’t inventing something new—he was writing down a rule that had been followed for decades.
The Attorney General is a political appointee who serves at the President’s pleasure. In other countries, prosecutors are independent from the President. The American Attorney General sits in the President’s cabinet and answers to him politically. The norm of prosecutorial independence exists within that structure—not because the law requires it, but because successive Attorneys General chose to respect it. The whole system depends on the Attorney General refusing improper orders.
How the System Was Supposed to Work
Before Bondi, several safeguards made it hard to start political prosecutions. Together, they made it difficult for a President to simply order the prosecution of his enemies.
First was review by supervisors up the chain. Federal prosecutors don’t unilaterally decide whom to charge. Usually, an FBI investigation comes first. Prosecutors in the relevant U.S. Attorney’s Office review the evidence and assess whether it meets the threshold for prosecution. For sensitive cases, senior prosecutors review whether the evidence is strong enough. For the most sensitive cases, the top officials at the Justice Department review it. This means multiple experienced prosecutors have to agree before charges are filed. If those prosecutors believe the evidence is weak, they document that judgment in writing. A supervisor can overrule them, but has to put it in writing. That creates a written record.
Second was job protections that make it hard to fire employees. Career prosecutors have legal protections the Attorney General doesn’t have. A prosecutor who refuses to indict someone the administration wants indicted can’t simply be removed for that refusal. Civil service laws are supposed to protect them from being fired for political reasons.
Third were professional ethics rules for prosecutors. Federal prosecutors are lawyers licensed by their states and must follow ethics rules. Ethics rules say prosecutors can’t file charges unless they have solid evidence. Breaking these rules can result in losing your law license.
Fourth was judicial review. Judges can throw out charges if prosecutors break ethics rules, keep out evidence that was obtained illegally or violates rights. Grand juries—groups of regular people—can refuse to approve charges.
Fifth was congressional oversight. Congress can investigate the Justice Department, call officials to testify, hold hearings, or in the most serious cases, remove officials through impeachment. The threat of investigation can deter political prosecutions.
Sixth was media scrutiny. When the Justice Department pursues political prosecutions, news coverage can embarrass the department and make the President look bad politically.
Finally was institutional culture. Career prosecutors develop a sense of professional identity based on the belief that they should pursue justice, not follow political orders. Senior prosecutors teach younger ones that independence matters. This belief gets passed down to new prosecutors.
No single safeguard is perfect. But together, they make political prosecutions hard. A determined administration can override them, but it’s expensive: you have to fire prosecutors who resist, lose cases in court, and face criticism from Congress.
The Dismantling
The safeguard that required multiple prosecutors to agree fell apart. A political appointee ignored what experienced prosecutors said.
The Trump administration broke federal law to pursue politically targeted prosecutions. When the violation was discovered, the judge threw out the charges. But the message was clear: you can break the law if you act quickly.
The firings went much further than removing a few people. This is a massive overhaul of who works there.
The professional ethics rule has been weakened through official statements. In internal memos, Justice Department officials said prosecutors should aggressively support Trump’s agenda, saying prosecutors should act like Trump’s personal lawyers. This contradicts the basic rule that prosecutors must follow ethics laws, which say they must seek justice, not help a particular person.
Former prosecutors from both parties said this violated federal law, which forbids hiring people based on their politics. The Justice Department’s own handbook says hiring decisions can’t be based on politics. This wasn’t an accident. It was saying openly that the Justice Department now hires based on loyalty to Trump.
Where the Safeguards Still Worked
Courts have been more resistant, probably because judges can’t be fired as easily. When the Comey and James cases reached court, the judge threw out both cases because they violated the law.
Grand juries—regular people—have surprisingly refused to approve charges in political cases where the evidence is weak.
Congress has provided some oversight, but not much. The House Judiciary Committee made Bondi answer questions. Democrats questioned her about targeting political opponents. But since Republicans control Congress, they defended Bondi instead of punishing her. Republicans said her actions were correct.
News outlets have reported extensively on whether the Justice Department became political. But in today’s divided media, some outlets call it weaponization while others say it’s prosecuting actual criminals. Republicans and Democrats couldn’t even agree on what happened.
The culture inside the Justice Department has been most damaged. Career prosecutors spent years learning that independence mattered. Now they work for an administration that doesn’t trust them and fires anyone who investigated Trump. As prosecutors left—fired or quit—the culture changed. Independence stopped being expected. Loyalty to Trump became the new rule.
What Power Does the President Actually Have?
There’s a basic question the Supreme Court has never clearly answered: Can the President order the Attorney General to prosecute specific people?
The Court touched on this indirectly in a 2024 case about presidential immunity, Trump v. United States. The Court said the President can’t be prosecuted for things he does as part of his job as President, and said the President controls investigations and prosecutions.
This sounds like the President can order any prosecution. But the ruling is narrower than it sounds. The Court meant Congress can’t force the President to investigate or prosecute anyone. But that doesn’t mean the President can order prosecutions of people he doesn’t like, and it doesn’t say whether ordering prosecutions would be legal or something he can’t be arrested for.
Constitutional law suggests there are limits. The First Amendment protects political speech, so prosecuting someone for their political beliefs is unconstitutional. The Constitution requires fair treatment, so prosecuting someone because you hate them violates basic fairness. The Constitution forbids unfair treatment of different groups, so prosecuting only your enemies is unconstitutional.
These rules mean the President can set general law enforcement goals, but ordering prosecutions of political enemies is unconstitutional. Federal prosecutors have rules saying they can’t prosecute based on politics.
There’s a difference between what the President can do and what he should do. This difference created the old system: the President could set overall Justice Department policy, but using that power to order political prosecutions broke the rules that had developed to prevent abuse.
The Supreme Court has been moving toward the idea that the President controls all government agencies. Recent Supreme Court decisions say the President can fire officials more easily. Some legal experts think this means the President can order prosecutions without limits. Others say Congress can still pass laws limiting the President’s power over prosecutions.
Since Watergate, Presidents have accepted that ordering political prosecutions breaks the rules, even if it might not be against the law. Bondi broke that rule.
What This Breakdown Actually Means
The Environmental Enforcement Section got polluters to pay over $1.88 billion in fines in the year before Bondi arrived. In her first eleven months, it collected only $15.1 million. That’s a 99 percent drop. A judge said it was shameful.
This means polluters don’t have to pay to clean up their mess. Communities near polluted sites won’t get them cleaned up. Companies that broke environmental law face no punishment.
The Civil Rights Division, created in 1957 to fight discrimination and enforce constitutional rights, has lost three-quarters of its career attorneys. That means voting rights cases that won’t be brought. Housing discrimination that won’t be prosecuted. Constitutional violations that won’t be challenged.
When prosecutors know they’ll be fired for cases the President doesn’t like, they stop pursuing them. When experienced lawyers leave in large numbers, the department loses its knowledge. When people see the Justice Department as a political tool instead of a law-based institution, it stops holding powerful people accountable.
When prosecutors know investigating Trump’s allies will hurt their careers, they avoid pursuing cases even when the evidence is strong. This creates a system where who gets prosecuted depends on politics, not evidence.
People stop trusting government. People don’t believe the government will treat them fairly. Businesses don’t know if laws will be applied fairly. Other countries question whether America follows the rule of law.
Law school graduates wonder if they can be ethical prosecutors if it means refusing the President’s orders. If the answer is no, the Justice Department will only hire prosecutors willing to follow political orders. That destroys the institution long-term.
If a President can order political prosecutions without punishment, the next President will ask: why should I follow rules the last President broke? This creates a cycle where each President pushes further. Once rules are broken without punishment, they’re treated as dead. Each new President feels justified going further. Democracy depends on everyone following the rules. When one side breaks the rules, the other side feels pressure to do the same.
Critics said the Biden Justice Department didn’t keep itself separate from politics. They said the timing of Trump prosecutions was influenced by the 2024 election. Whether or not this is true, Trump’s rule-breaking justifies similar rule-breaking by future Democratic Presidents, creating a downward spiral.
How to Fix This
Legal experts and former Justice Department officials have proposed writing independence rules into law. But these proposals face a constitutional problem: can Congress limit the President’s power? The Supreme Court has been saying the President controls all government agencies.
One idea is to give Special Counsels more protection from being fired, so they can only be fired for good reason and their investigations can’t be stopped. Another idea is to require that if the President orders a prosecution, it has to be in writing and reported to Congress so everyone knows about it. A third idea is to create an independent investigator for government abuse, like the old independent counsel law but updated.
Some experts suggest making the Justice Department independent, like the Federal Reserve is. Another approach would protect career prosecutors from being fired for doing their jobs. This would require a new law and would probably be challenged in court.
Congress has considered a law requiring that if the President tries to fire a Special Counsel, Congress has to be told and can keep the position if it votes to. This would require either changing the Constitution or a Supreme Court ruling.
All these ideas need either Congress or the Supreme Court to approve them. Congress would need both parties to agree, which won’t happen. The Supreme Court has been giving Presidents more power, not less.
What Happened at the Hearing
Bondi’s testimony showed Republicans and Democrats couldn’t even agree on what happened. Republicans said she was fixing a Justice Department that had unfairly targeted Trump and conservatives. Democrats said she was attacking the rule of law. Bondi said she was doing her job: enforcing the law and following the President’s priorities.
Congress can’t stop the breakdown of the unwritten rules. Democrats could ask questions, but without Republican support, they couldn’t fire her or force her to change. Republicans defended her and told a completely different version of events. Partisan division meant Republicans and Democrats saw the same events completely differently.
The only real check that worked was the judge throwing out the Comey and James cases because the prosecutor was appointed illegally. That shows the law does provide some protection. Courts can throw out cases for illegal appointments, weak evidence, or unfair treatment.
But this protection only works after someone is prosecuted and the case goes to court. That doesn’t help people who are investigated. The investigation itself is punishment: legal bills, damaged reputation, stress—even if the case is thrown out.
Whether the unwritten rules survive depends on several things. If Congress passes laws protecting independence, those laws might work better than unwritten rules. If the Supreme Court settles the question of when the President can fire people and says the President can’t fire prosecutors for doing their job, that would help. If future Presidents choose to follow the old rules—either because they believe in them or because breaking them becomes too expensive politically—the rules might come back.
But if rule-breaking continues without punishment, if the Justice Department’s culture becomes about loyalty to the President instead of independence, and if each new President pushes further, then the unwritten rules protecting prosecutors since Watergate may be gone for good. The result would be a completely different justice system. One where prosecutors are political appointees instead of professionals making decisions based on evidence.
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