# Department of Justice The **Department of Justice (DOJ)** is the federal government's law-enforcement and litigation apparatus — the body that investigates and prosecutes federal crime, represents the United States in court, runs the federal prison system, and enforces civil-rights, antitrust, and national-security law. It is headed not by a "Secretary" but by the **Attorney General**, a reflection of the office's origin: the AG predates the department by 81 years (the office was created in 1789; the department was built around it in 1870). Its component agencies include the [[FBI]], the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), the U.S. Marshals Service, the Bureau of Prisons, and the litigating divisions — Antitrust, Civil Rights, Criminal, National Security, and the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC). DOJ is the keystone of the executive-branch capture project, because it is the department that holds the **coercive power to investigate, prosecute, and imprison**. Every other capture move is reinforced by control of DOJ: if the department will decline to prosecute allies, drop pending cases, open investigations into opponents, and decline to defend disfavored laws, then the rule-of-law check on executive power is substantially neutralized. This is why the contemporary contest over DOJ — its independence from the White House, the norm against political direction of specific prosecutions, the integrity of the FBI — is not a bureaucratic side issue but the central front. ## Leadership (2025–2026: Bondi out, Blanche confirmed) → **The structure:** for the full component map — law-enforcement agencies, litigating divisions, OLC and the Solicitor General, the 93 U.S. Attorneys, the immigration courts, and the internal-oversight tier, with current heads — see **[[DOJ Component Tree]]**. → **The prosecutors:** for the full roster of DOJ prosecutorial leadership, notable U.S. Attorneys, the weaponization/retribution prosecutors, and special counsels, see **[[Federal Prosecutors Hub]]**. [[Pam Bondi]] was confirmed as Attorney General on February 4, 2025 (54–46), after the withdrawal of Trump's first nominee, [[Matt Gaetz]]. On **April 2, 2026, Trump fired Bondi** — reportedly frustrated by her handling of the [[Jeffrey Epstein]] files and by what he saw as insufficient prosecution of his political opponents. **[[Todd Blanche]]**, the Deputy Attorney General (and previously Trump's personal criminal-defense attorney), stepped in as **Acting Attorney General**, with EPA Administrator [[Lee Zeldin]] reported among those under consideration for the permanent post. Commentators framed Bondi's ouster as paving the way for an even more compliant DOJ — removed not for being too aggressive but for not being aggressive enough in Trump's direction. **Blanche was made permanent on August 8, 2026**, confirmed **50–49** in a post-4 a.m. vote ahead of the Senate's recess, with Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski the only Republicans opposed; he was sworn in August 10. He is the first Attorney General of the modern era to arrive in the office directly from having served as the President's personal criminal-defense counsel — and his elevation left the **Deputy Attorney General's seat vacant**, the post through which twenty-five components and all ninety-three U.S. Attorneys report. Associate Attorney General [[Stanley Woodward]], himself formerly defense counsel to Trump aides and co-defendants, is the department's remaining confirmed operational deputy. At the [[FBI]], [[Kash Patel]] was confirmed director in early 2025 on a platform of rooting out the "deep state" within the Bureau itself. The defining feature of this leadership tier is the **erosion of the traditional firewall** between the White House and individual DOJ matters. The post-Watergate norm — that the President does not direct the AG on specific investigations or prosecutions — is treated by the [[Unitary Executive Theory]] project as itself illegitimate, an unconstitutional constraint on the President's command of the executive branch. The Bondi firing made the logic explicit: the measure of an Attorney General is fidelity to the President's enemies-and-allies list. ## The capture lens DOJ appears in the [[Project 2025]] blueprint as a department to be brought firmly under presidential control, with the career ranks — especially in the Civil Rights Division and the senior litigating offices — purged and reoriented. The operational pattern the KB tracks: - **Weaponization framing** — recasting prior investigations of Trump and allies as the real abuse, and standing up new structures (a "weaponization working group") to investigate the investigators. - **Declination and dismissal** — declining to bring or continuing to drop cases against allies; the pardon power amplifies this. - **Targeting of opponents** — opening or threatening investigations into political adversaries, prosecutors, and officials from prior administrations. - **Civil-rights reorientation** — redirecting the Civil Rights Division away from its historical mission toward a different enforcement agenda. - **FBI restructuring** — personnel turnover and reorganization under [[Kash Patel]], framed as reform of a captured Bureau. ## Component agencies Each now has its own page: [[DEA]] (drug enforcement), [[ATF]] (firearms and explosives), the [[United States Marshals Service]] (fugitives, judicial security, prisoner transport), the [[Bureau of Prisons]] (federal incarceration), and the [[Office of Legal Counsel]], whose opinions define what the executive branch believes it may lawfully do. The litigating divisions — Antitrust, Civil Rights, Criminal, National Security — remain plain references for now. ## See Also - [[FBI]] - [[Pam Bondi]] - [[Kash Patel]] - [[Project 2025]] - [[Unitary Executive Theory]] - [[Administrative State]] - [[Cabinet Departments Hub]] - [[Federal Agencies]]