Somebody to ‘do his bidding’: Trump’s loyalists — and his personal lawyers — could end up running DOJ

Story by Erica Orden. November 2, 2024.

  • Trump’s Justice Department Plans: If re-elected, Donald Trump aims to regain control of the Justice Department to end his prosecutions and seek retribution against political enemies.
  • Loyalty Over Competency: Trump prioritizes loyalty over competency for key Justice Department positions, avoiding past mistakes with appointees who were not sufficiently loyal.
  • Potential Candidates: Names under consideration include Jeffrey Clark, Mike Lee, Josh Hawley, Eric Schmitt, Todd Blanche, Emil Bove, John Ratcliffe, Jeffrey Jensen, Will Levi, Mike Davis, Kash Patel, and Judge Aileen Cannon.
  • Senate Confirmation: Trump may face challenges with Senate confirmation for some appointees but plans to use “acting” positions to bypass this hurdle.

Seeks retribution against his perceived political enemies. His list of targets is long and growing:

  • Vice President Kamala Harris;
  • President Joe Biden and his family;
  • Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who successfully prosecuted Trump in one of his other criminal cases; and
  • Members of the House Jan. 6 select committee, just to name a few. He has threatened to prosecute a host of unnamed Democratic lawyers, political operatives, “illegal voters” and election officials, as well as judges and court officials. He has pledged not only to fire Smith but also to kick him out of the country.
  • Liz Cheney (R-WY)
  • Dick Cheney (R), VP to George W Bush.
  • ? Jerushah Duford, Billy Graham ‘s granddaughter, Franklin Graham’s niece. Oh, and a Trump critic,
  • @RalphHightower – I’ll go ahead and put myself on Trump’s “Enemy List” since I am one of “The Enemy Within” since my opinion of Trump is that he’s a ducking idiot.

Trump’s Legal Problems

  • Federal
    • 2020 Election Interference
      • Conspiracy to defraud the U.S.
      • Conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding
      • Obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding
      • Conspiracy against rights
    • National Defense/Top Secret/Classified Documents
      • 32 counts of unlawful retention of national defense information;
      • One count of conspiracy to obstruct justice;
      • One count of withholding a document or record;
      • One count of corruptly concealing a document or record
      • One count of concealing a document in a federal investigation
      • One count of scheme to conceal
      • One count of false statements and representations
      • One count of altering, destroying, mutilating or concealing an object
      • One count of corruptly altering, destroying, mutilating or concealing a document, record or other object
  • State
    • New York
      • FIRST COUNT: FALSIFYING BUSINESS RECORDS IN THE FIRST DEGREE
      • SECOND COUNT: FALSIFYING BUSINESS RECORDS IN THE FIRST DEGREE
      • THIRD COUNT: FALSIFYING BUSINESS RECORDS IN THE FIRST DEGREE
      • FOURTH COUNT: FALSIFYING BUSINESS RECORDS IN THE FIRST DEGREE
      • FIFTH COUNT: FALSIFYING BUSINESS RECORDS IN THE FIRST DEGREE
      • SIXTH COUNT: FALSIFYING BUSINESS RECORDS IN THE FIRST DEGREE
      • SEVENTH COUNT: FALSIFYING BUSINESS RECORDS IN THE FIRST DEGREE
      • EIGHTH COUNT: FALSIFYING BUSINESS RECORDS IN THE FIRST DEGREE
      • NINTH COUNT: FALSIFYING BUSINESS RECORDS IN THE FIRST DEGREE
    • Georgia (not a complete list of indictment indictments)
      • Violating Georgia’s racketeering act: The indictment alleges that Mr Trump, “while associated with an enterprise, unlawfully conspired” through a pattern of fraudulent activity to change the outcome of the election. This falls under the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (Rico) Act, which has been used to bring down mafia bosses like John Gotti
      • Solicitation of violation of oath by public officer: Mr Trump is facing three counts on this charge, including one related to a January 2021 phone call between Mr Trump and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, during which prosecutors allege Mr Trump asked Mr Raffensperger to “unlawfully” alter or adjust the the certified returns for presidential electors
      • Conspiracy to impersonate a public officer: The indictment alleges Mr Trump unlawfully conspired to influence certain individuals to falsely act as elected officials “with intent to mislead”
      • Conspiracy to commit forgery in the first degree: The charge alleges that Mr Trump intended to defraud the public by conspiring to make a false document titled “CERTIFICATE OF THE VOTES OF THE 2020 ELECTORS FROM GEORGIA”, a document which would have made Mr Trump appear to be the winning candidate in Georgia
      • False statements and writings and filing false documents: The purpose of the false statements, of which there are several listed, was to persuade Georgia legislators to “reject lawful” votes cast by duly elected officials, the indictment alleges

The DOJ Candidate List

  • Jeffrey Clark is an obvious candidate for a top Justice Department job. For most of Trump’s presidency, he was a little-known official who served as an assistant attorney general for environmental issues. But he rose to prominence after the 2020 election, when he proved his loyalty by pressuring other Justice Department officials to support Trump’s attempt to overturn Biden’s victory. In January 2021, during his last-ditch attempt to hold onto power, Trump considered appointing Clark as the acting attorney general, with the expectation that Clark would have the Justice Department promote Trump’s false claims of voter fraud. Trump backed off when other senior officials threatened a mass resignation if Trump went through with the plan. Because of his role in Trump’s election plot, Clark was indicted alongside Trump in Georgia. He was also named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the special counsel’s federal election case against Trump. And a disciplinary panel has recommended that Clark’s law license be suspended for two years.
  • Sen. Mike Lee (T-UT) who converted from a Trump skeptic to a vocal supporter. Trump has toyed with putting Lee in a powerful post before; in 2018, he interviewed Lee about a Supreme Court seat. Like Clark, Lee tried to keep Trump in power following the 2020 election.
  • Sen. Josh Hawley (T-MO)1 became one of the most visible supporters of Trump’s effort to overturn the election results. Hawley is one of the Senate’s most conservative members, and of the candidates on Trump’s radar for a top DOJ post, he is among the most traditionally well qualified: He attended Yale Law School and clerked for Chief Justice John Roberts.
  • Sen. Eric Schmitt (T-MO) (T-MO), has also caught Trump’s eye. Like Hawley, Schmitt was Missouri’s attorney general before becoming a senator, and Schmitt used his state job to challenge Covid restrictions like mask and vaccine mandates. He also supported legal efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election in Trump’s favor. Since joining Congress in 2023, the freshman Republican has taken several steps to ingratiate himself to Trump, including vowing to oppose major legislation and Biden nominees in the wake of Trump’s criminal conviction in Manhattan.
  • Todd Blanche, the lawyer who led Trump’s criminal defense in the former president’s Manhattan trial, is one name on the list. Though Trump lost that trial, with a jury finding him guilty of 34 criminal counts, Blanche can take credit for securing Trump several plum victories, including getting his federal criminal case in Florida dismissed well in advance of the election and getting his sentencing in Manhattan postponed until after Election Day. Blanche is a former federal prosecutor in the Manhattan U.S. attorney’s office who, in spite of his representation of Trump, remains well regarded by many in and around that office, and some see him as a natural candidate to lead the office should Trump win in November. Blanche is also said to be under consideration for several top Justice Department jobs in Washington.
  • Emil Bove, Blanche’s law partner, who represents Trump alongside Blanche in the Manhattan criminal trial as well as the former president’s two federal criminal cases, is under consideration. Bove, too, is a former Manhattan federal prosecutor who was co-chief of the national security unit. While both Blanche and Bove have the credentials for a senior job in the department, neither is seen as as ideological or as unflinchingly loyal as some of the others on the list.
  • John Ratcliffe, the former director of national intelligence. Ratcliffe, who is now co-chair of the Center for American Security at the America First Policy Institute, a Trump-aligned think tank, became a Trump acolyte during the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. Then a Texas congressman, Ratcliffe became a sharp critic of Robert Mueller’s probe. Ratcliffe has had trouble with Senate confirmation in the past: When Trump first nominated him in 2019, questions about whether he had embellished his resume derailed Ratcliffe’s bid to become the country’s top intelligence official. But he ultimately won Senate confirmation for the job the following year. Many believe Ratcliffe used the post to carry out Trump’s political agenda, and that could put him on Trump’s radar for an important Justice Department job this time around.
  • Jeffrey Jensen, a former FBI agent and the Trump-appointed former U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Missouri. In 2020, at then Attorney General Bill Barr’s request, Jensen conducted the Justice Department’s review of the criminal case against former Trump National Security Advisor Michael Flynn, ultimately recommending that the prosecution be dropped.
  • Will Levi, Barr’s former chief of staff. Barr broke with Trump when Barr criticized his former boss over Trump’s efforts to subvert the 2020 election — but then said he would vote for Trump this year. Levi, a partner at Sidley Austin who worked as a law clerk for Justice Samuel Alito and then as chief counsel for Lee, has managed to stay in the good graces of Trump supporters.
  • Mike Davis, founder of the Article III Project, an advocacy group aimed at the judiciary, is a Republican lawyer who worked as chief counsel for nominations to Senate Judiciary Chair Chuck Grassley during the Trump administration. As an outside adviser, he led Supreme Court confirmation efforts for Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh. He’s a vocal defender of Trump on social media and conservative news sites, and is said to have the backing of Donald Trump Jr., though how seriously is an open question.
  • Kash Patel, who is assisting in the process of compiling candidates, is also a potential candidate himself. Patel is former federal public defender and former federal prosecutor in the Justice Department’s national security division who went on to become a top House staffer helping craft Republican responses to the investigations of Trump and Russian election interference. Patel has been a staunch and visible defender of Trump, showing up at his criminal trial in Manhattan and perpetuating conspiracy theories about the 2020 election. During the Trump administration, he worked as chief of staff to the secretary of defense.
  • Aileen Cannon, the judge who dismissed the classified documents case and is also overseeing the criminal case against the man who allegedly attempted to assassinate Trump on his Florida golf course. Trump appointed Cannon to the federal bench in Florida shortly before he left office, and he has repeatedly praised her for issuing a multitude of rulings favorable to the former president.

Josh Hawley (T-MO) Raising a Closed Fist In Support of Trump’s Far Right Fringe Groups, Pride Boys, Zero Percenters, Oath Losers, BoogerLougies. Prior to Laying Siege On the US Capitol In a Failed Insurrection Attempt to Overthrow the Federal Government

Josh Hawley (T-MO) Fleeing Trump’s Far Right Fringe Groups, Pride Boys, Zero Percenters, Oath Losers, BoogerLougies

  1. @RalphHightower: Oh HELL NO!!! There’s that indelible image of Hawley walking to work, behind the fence barricade raising a closed fist up as a sign of unity to that amalgamation of Trump far-right fringe nut-jobs, the Pride Boys, Zero Percenters, Oath Losers, BoogerLougies, that would lay siege on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, in a failed insurrection attempt to overthrow the government. ↩