Attorney General Pam Bondi has issued a directive that seriously undermines the US Department of Justice’s mission to “uphold the rule of law, to keep our country safe, and to protect civil rights.”
In a Feb. 5 memo describing the DOJ’s “general policy regarding zealous advocacy on behalf of the United States,” Bondi set forth a key contradiction. While DOJ attorneys must “zealously defend the interests” of the US, she notes that those “interests, and the overall policy of the United States, are set by the Nation’s Chief Executive.”
Bondi makes it clear that this means that the responsibilities of DOJ attorneys “include not only aggressively enforcing criminal and civil laws enacted by Congress, but also vigorously defending presidential policies and actions.”
A DOJ attorney who disregards those responsibilities “deprives the President of the benefit of his lawyers,” and “will be subject to discipline and potentially termination.”
Rule of Law
But DOJ lawyers aren’t the president’s lawyers. They are our country’s lawyers. They must always act on behalf of our country, not the president. The “interests and overall policy of the United States” are set by the Constitution, and by the statutes Congress approves and the president signs into law, subject to review by the courts.