No Time Wasted in Justice Department’s Rightward Shift

“Even before Donald Trump’s portrait could be restored to the walls of the Justice Department, interim officials began driving a conservative U-turn at the agency,” the Wall Street Journal reports.

“They replaced a Biden-era memo telling prosecutors to show leniency to some drug offenders with a new policy calling for the pursuit of the most serious charges and the stiffest penalties for all crimes. They halted much of the department’s civil-rights and environmental work. And they transferred more than 15 career employees to relatively marginal positions, part of a broader effort to ultimately thin the workforce. That was just the first week.”

“A new administration always brings changes in personnel and policy. But current and former department officials said the pace, scope and tone of Trump’s early moves in his second term are unusual and signal that a more dramatic transformation lies ahead.”