New attorney general orders review of Trump cases as she takes over the Justice Dept.

WASHINGTON — 

New Attorney General Pam Bondi connected Wednesday issued a bid of directives designed to overhaul a Justice Department that President Donald Trump says is biased against conservatives.

Hours aft she was sworn successful astatine the White House, Bondi called for the instauration of "weaponization moving group" that volition scrutinize the enactment of peculiar counsel Jack Smith, who charged Trump successful 2 transgression cases. The radical volition besides reappraisal "unethical prosecutions" stemming from the Jan. 6, 2021, riot astatine the U.S. Capitol, among different things, according to the memo.

Trump and his allies person contended that the Justice Department nether the Biden medication had go weaponized against conservatives. Some of the department’s astir high-profile probes acrophobic the Democratic president and his son, and there's been nary grounds to enactment the thought that the prosecutions against Trump were launched for a partisan purpose.

It was 1 of 14 directives signed by Bondi designed to rotation backmost Biden medication policies and align the Justice Department with the priorities of a White House that seeks to exert power implicit national instrumentality enforcement and purge agencies of vocation employees it views arsenic disloyal.

Among different directives Bondi signed were orders to assistance the moratorium connected the national decease punishment and extremity national grants administered by the Justice Department for jurisdictions that "unlawfully interfere with national instrumentality enforcement."

The Justice Department volition supply quarterly reports to the White House connected the advancement of the moving group’s review, which volition look for instances wherever agencies' actions "appear to person been designed to execute governmental objectives oregon different improper aims alternatively than pursuing justice," according to the memo.

In different memo, Bondi wrote that prosecutors could look firings if they garbage to motion onto briefs oregon look successful tribunal to reason connected behalf of the administration, saying it's the section lawyers' occupation to "vigorously support statesmanlike policies and actions against ineligible challenges."

The flurry of enactment signals a melodramatic reshaping of the Justice Department nether Bondi, a longtime Trump state and erstwhile Florida lawyer wide who defended the president during his archetypal impeachment proceedings against allegations that helium abused the powerfulness of his office.

Democrats who opposed Bondi's confirmation person raised concerns astir whether she would beryllium capable to pb a Justice Department escaped of power from the White House fixed her adjacent narration with the president, who repeatedly suggested connected the run way that helium would question to usage the justness strategy to nonstop revenge connected his perceived enemies.

Bondi has said that authorities volition play nary relation successful her decision-making, but she besides refused astatine her confirmation proceeding past period to regularisation retired imaginable investigations into Trump's adversaries. She besides has repeated Trump's claims that the prosecutions against him amounted to governmental persecution, telling senators that the Justice Department "had been weaponized for years and years and years, and it's got to stop."

Despite the wide-ranging ambitions of the "weaponization moving group" memo, there's nary denotation that the radical volition person prosecutorial powers oregon tools specified arsenic subpoenas that could compel subjects of the inquiries to cooperate with the caller unit.

And though the memo purports to instrumentality purpose astatine the "weaponization" of the Justice Department, it excludes from reappraisal investigations into Democrats by Biden's Justice Department, including peculiar counsel probes into the erstwhile president's handling of classified accusation and his lad Hunter's weapon and taxation allegations, which resulted successful felony convictions earlier helium was pardoned by his begetter successful December.

Smith's squad investigated Trump implicit his efforts to overturn the 2020 statesmanlike predetermination and his hoarding of classified documents astatine his Mar-a-Lago property successful Florida. Both of those cases resulted successful indictments that were withdrawn aft Trump's November statesmanlike triumph due to the fact that of long-standing Justice Department argumentation prohibiting the national prosecution of a sitting president.

Bondi takes implicit department, which has been roiled by the firings of vocation prosecutors and elder FBI officials, on with the highly antithetic scrutiny of thousands of agents progressive successful the sprawling Jan. 6 investigation.

FBI agents this week sued aft the Justice Department demanded that the bureau crook implicit the names of each agents progressive successful the Jan. 6 probe, which agents judge whitethorn beryllium a precursor to wide firings.