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DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE

Gene Hamilton

he Department of Justice (DOJ) has along and noble history. That history

began with the creation of the Office of the Attorney General pursuant to

the Judiciary Act of 1789' and has continued through the creation of the department in 1870,” the formation of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBD in 1908,* reforms following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and to the present day. Properly understood within the framework of a constitutional republic that values ordered liberty, the Department of Justice has two primary functions: protecting public safety and defending the rule of law.

Unfortunately, the department has lost its way in recent years and has forfeited the trust of large segments of the American people. Large swaths of the department have been captured by an unaccountable bureaucratic managerial class and radical Left ideologues who have embedded themselves throughout its offices and components. The department also suffers from institutional inattentiveness to its core functions. Instead of being perceived as possessing the utmost impartiality and fairness as it advances the national interest on behalf of the American people— fighting crime and defending the rule of law—the DOJ has become a department that 46.6 percent of Americans recently indicated is, in their view, “too political, corrupt, and not to be trusted.”*

The weight of the publicly available evidence indicates that there are many reasons for this lack of trust. For example:

• The Federal Bureau of Investigation, knowing that claims of collusion with Russia were false,° collaborated with Democratic operatives to inject