The Justice Department has functioned for nearly two years as an extension of the White House, unchecked by a Republican-controlled Congress as it pursued investigations into President Donald Trump’s enemies, fired waves of career employees and defended administration stances that judges across the country repeatedly deemed legally dubious.
Now, sweeping Democratic gains in Congress have shifted the balance of power in Washington, teeing up an onslaught of expected investigations into those actions and others as well as scrutiny from the majority party that the current Justice Department had until now managed to skirt.
The department has, at least publicly, appeared unbowed by the altered landscape.
Attorney General Todd Blanche says the department will cooperate with Congress but has also insisted that “we will not back down” from the Republican president’s agenda. Meanwhile, a top aide told prosecutors on a call to prepare to be on “wartime” footing and a U.S. attorney publicly warned a top Democrat about planned congressional investigations.
It sets the stage for a pugilistic dynamic as Democrats promise to join already-skeptical courts in reining in the Trump administration while a Justice Department depleted by the losses of thousands of career employees and the postelection departures of senior leaders pledges to push ahead with its agenda.
Even though Democrats hold the gavel, they’re short on foolproof ways to guarantee Republican cooperation. Lawsuits can take years, subpoenas can be arduous to enforce and criminal contempt referrals for noncompliance would be sent to the Trump administration Justice Department, where they will almost certainly not be acted on.
“It’s a standoff and I don’t know what the answer to that is yet,” said Stan Brand, a former general counsel for the House of Representatives. “I don’t know if the Congress knows.”
Nonetheless, Democrats are eager to highlight what they view as abuses of power, including a succession of investigations the department has launched into the president’s perceived adversaries, many of which have been rejected by grand juries, dismissed by judges or have otherwise stalled without apparent progress.
In just the eventful weeks leading up to the election, the department unsuccessfully sought an indictment against former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson, accelerated an investigation into Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar, employed an unusual maneuver to file a fresh criminal case against former FBI Director James Comey and charged two ex-FBI officials in a complaint that was swiftly dismissed by a judge.
