Lawfare Daily: Inside the Upheaval of the Second Trump Administration with Emily Bazelon

The Justice Department, FBI, and DHS under the second Trump administration underwent a systemic dismantling of their institutional independence, transforming from nonpartisan legal enforcers into tools of political retaliation. Emily Bazelon’s New York Times oral history trilogy reveals that career attorneys across these agencies were not just disillusioned by ideological shifts, but traumatized by direct orders to target specific individuals and reach predetermined conclusions—violating the core principle of fact-based investigation. What stands out is not just the chaos, but the deliberate erosion of norms: elite units like the FBI’s CR15 corruption squad were dismantled after investigating Trump himself, while immigration enforcement was weaponized across agencies, pulling agents from border duties into urban cities without training. Despite widespread fear and resignation, some civil servants resisted quietly—documenting their work, refusing to fabricate evidence, and protecting colleagues. Yet the most alarming shift is the normalization of the Justice Department as a presidential weapon, exemplified by a $8 billion slush fund created in exchange for dropping a lawsuit against the IRS—something the first Trump administration would have rejected. The story isn’t just about dysfunction, but about a fundamental redefinition of the rule of law: the government is no longer a neutral arbiter, but a partisan instrument.