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Injustice: How Politics and Fear Vanquished America's Justice Department
From Pulitzer Prize–winning Washington Post reporters Carol Leonnig and Aaron C. Davis, a shocking investigation of unparalleled depth into the subversion of the Justice Department over the last decade, culminating in President Donald Trump upending this cornerstone of democracy and threatening America’s rule of law as we have long known it
>Throughout his first administration, Trump did more than any other president to politicize the nation’s top law enforcement agency, pressuring appointees to shield him, to target his enemies, and even to help him cling to power after his 2020 election defeat. The department, pressed into a defensive crouch, has never fully recovered.
Injustice exposes not only the Trump administration’s efforts to undermine the department at every turn but also how delays in investigating Trump’s effort to overturn the will of voters under Attorney General Merrick Garland helped prevent the country from holding Trump accountable and enabled his return to power. With never-before-told accounts, Carol Leonnig and Aaron C. Davis take readers inside as prosecutors convulsed over Trump’s disdain for the rule of law, and FBI agents, the department’s storied investigators, at times retreated in fear. They take you to the rooms where Special Counsel Jack Smith’s team set off on an all-but-impossible race to investigate Trump for absconding with classified documents and waging an assault on democracy—and inside his prosecution’s heroic and fateful choices that ultimately backfired.
With a plethora of sources deeply embedded in the ranks of three presidencies, Leonnig and Davis reveal the daily war secretly waged for the soul of the department, how it has been shredded by propaganda and partisanship, and how—if the United States hopes to live on with its same form of government—Trump’s war with the Justice Department will mark a turning point from which it will be hard to recover. Injustice is the jaw-dropping account of partisans and enablers undoing democracy, heroes still battling to preserve a nation governed by laws, and a call to action for those who believe in liberty and justice for all.
>Throughout his first administration, Trump did more than any other president to politicize the nation’s top law enforcement agency, pressuring appointees to shield him, to target his enemies, and even to help him cling to power after his 2020 election defeat. The department, pressed into a defensive crouch, has never fully recovered.
Injustice exposes not only the Trump administration’s efforts to undermine the department at every turn but also how delays in investigating Trump’s effort to overturn the will of voters under Attorney General Merrick Garland helped prevent the country from holding Trump accountable and enabled his return to power. With never-before-told accounts, Carol Leonnig and Aaron C. Davis take readers inside as prosecutors convulsed over Trump’s disdain for the rule of law, and FBI agents, the department’s storied investigators, at times retreated in fear. They take you to the rooms where Special Counsel Jack Smith’s team set off on an all-but-impossible race to investigate Trump for absconding with classified documents and waging an assault on democracy—and inside his prosecution’s heroic and fateful choices that ultimately backfired.
With a plethora of sources deeply embedded in the ranks of three presidencies, Leonnig and Davis reveal the daily war secretly waged for the soul of the department, how it has been shredded by propaganda and partisanship, and how—if the United States hopes to live on with its same form of government—Trump’s war with the Justice Department will mark a turning point from which it will be hard to recover. Injustice is the jaw-dropping account of partisans and enablers undoing democracy, heroes still battling to preserve a nation governed by laws, and a call to action for those who believe in liberty and justice for all.
496 pages, Hardcover
First published November 4, 2025
737 people are currently reading
2057 people want to read
About the author
Carol Leonnig
17 books223 followersCarol Duhurst Leonnig is an American investigative journalist and a longtime staff writer for The Washington Post. She was part of a team of national security reporters that won the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service in 2014 for reporting that revealed the NSA's expanded spying on Americans. She later received Pulitzers for National Reporting in 2015 and 2018. She is a member of the '87 class at Bryn Mawr College
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 128 reviews
November 29, 2025
Not many of the basic facts in here were new to me, however the author did go into exhaustive detail about the procedures of the Department of Justice (which needs to be renamed). Frankly, for the most part the DOJ and FBI seem to have done a good job. Of course there were a few mistakes (like not getting rid of the corrupt Florida judge) and the slowness of the process was a definite detriment.
It isn’t until the last third of the book that we really see the devastation of our system of justice. There are still some judges in the lower courts who believe in the Constitution and rule of law. However, I find it hard to believe that the new appointees on the Supreme Court and the new hires in the DOJ had any legal training at all, certainly not in Constutional law or legal ethics. People with experience and integrity were purged. It will be impossible to get any qualified people to apply for those jobs, maybe ever again. A lot of this book opened old wounds. It is all very tragic, infuriating and embarrassing.
It isn’t until the last third of the book that we really see the devastation of our system of justice. There are still some judges in the lower courts who believe in the Constitution and rule of law. However, I find it hard to believe that the new appointees on the Supreme Court and the new hires in the DOJ had any legal training at all, certainly not in Constutional law or legal ethics. People with experience and integrity were purged. It will be impossible to get any qualified people to apply for those jobs, maybe ever again. A lot of this book opened old wounds. It is all very tragic, infuriating and embarrassing.
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November 17, 2025“If it was anybody else, we would arrest him tomorrow.”
December 21, 2025
I read this largely on the strength of two other recent Leonnig books, 'A Very Stable Genius' (which she co-wrote) and 'Zero Fail' (which she wrote by herself).
Because of the writing style, the first book managed to find an angle of reporting that illuminated T---- terror in a way that seemed fresh (esp. for those well-versed from following political coverage). The second book was different, in that the Secret Service is not an outfit that gets much media coverage (why would it?; it's *secret*). So I actually learned more from the second book.
'Injustice' (another co-write for Leonnig) revealed (for me, personally) the least amount of the three books. ~ which is not to say it's an inferior work. It maintains a high standard of reporting - but it covers a lot of ground that had already made its way through general reporting.
That said, even the best of independent reporting (and it's out there if you look for it) can't cover everything (there's never enough time to unravel the sheer amount of destruction, esp. in more recent days) - and 'Injustice', as well as being an official document of its focus for the record, is admirable for the welcome nuance of its details.
The book becomes most effective (and more eye-opening) in its final chapters (about the last quarter of the book). Whereas 'It' managed to hurt the DOJ less the first time around (but see also Peter Strzok's compelling personal account, 'Compromised'), 'its' current 'revenge tour' is a different matter. The way that Leonnig and co-author Aaron C. Davis lay out the countless specifics of how the DOJ has largely been - from Day One - swept clean of all but T---- loyalists is a heartbreaking display of just how vulnerable our democracy is. It seems there can never be too many guardrails (and there aren't nearly enough 'bulletproof' ones) when it comes to what amounts to a coup.
The stories here of those who you're not likely to know of (or much of) seem to reflect a reality that 'there are more of us than there are of them' and that the days of the arrogant, narcissistic sociopaths are numbered.
Unfortunately (because of my work), I spend a grossly inordinate amount of time focused on what happens in government. I imagine that many people don't because following it can be overwhelming and frustrating. Way too many books have been published about this current administration and its deranged 'leader'. I'm selective about the actual books I read because I'm already mired in news coverage. But I try to find the ones that expose urgent info that I wouldn't otherwise happen upon elsewhere.
'Injustice' manages to justify its inclusion in that group.
Because of the writing style, the first book managed to find an angle of reporting that illuminated T---- terror in a way that seemed fresh (esp. for those well-versed from following political coverage). The second book was different, in that the Secret Service is not an outfit that gets much media coverage (why would it?; it's *secret*). So I actually learned more from the second book.
'Injustice' (another co-write for Leonnig) revealed (for me, personally) the least amount of the three books. ~ which is not to say it's an inferior work. It maintains a high standard of reporting - but it covers a lot of ground that had already made its way through general reporting.
That said, even the best of independent reporting (and it's out there if you look for it) can't cover everything (there's never enough time to unravel the sheer amount of destruction, esp. in more recent days) - and 'Injustice', as well as being an official document of its focus for the record, is admirable for the welcome nuance of its details.
The book becomes most effective (and more eye-opening) in its final chapters (about the last quarter of the book). Whereas 'It' managed to hurt the DOJ less the first time around (but see also Peter Strzok's compelling personal account, 'Compromised'), 'its' current 'revenge tour' is a different matter. The way that Leonnig and co-author Aaron C. Davis lay out the countless specifics of how the DOJ has largely been - from Day One - swept clean of all but T---- loyalists is a heartbreaking display of just how vulnerable our democracy is. It seems there can never be too many guardrails (and there aren't nearly enough 'bulletproof' ones) when it comes to what amounts to a coup.
The stories here of those who you're not likely to know of (or much of) seem to reflect a reality that 'there are more of us than there are of them' and that the days of the arrogant, narcissistic sociopaths are numbered.
Unfortunately (because of my work), I spend a grossly inordinate amount of time focused on what happens in government. I imagine that many people don't because following it can be overwhelming and frustrating. Way too many books have been published about this current administration and its deranged 'leader'. I'm selective about the actual books I read because I'm already mired in news coverage. But I try to find the ones that expose urgent info that I wouldn't otherwise happen upon elsewhere.
'Injustice' manages to justify its inclusion in that group.
March 22, 2026
Wow! I thought that I did a fairly good job of keeping up with the news. However, when Trump has been in power, I find it difficult to watch and hear his latest ploys to undermine the Constitutional protections that the country has so long relied upon so I have often relied on written publications and reports from reliable sources. This book, well written and researched by two Pulitzer Prize- winning journalists, provides the inside information about how Trump and his sycophant cronies have undermined the U.S. Justice Department, making it his private law firm, obviously blatantly violating its original purpose and practices over the last 250 years.
To mirror a book title written the first Trump administration, "It's even worse than it looks." Reading this book could be compared to reading a novel by George Orwell or reading The Handmaid's Tale. It is frightening to read of how Trump has summarily destroyed the Department of Justice. Hundreds of people in the FBI and within the Attorney General's office have been issued ultimatums to either switch their allegiance to Trump rather than the law, resign, or be fired. The fear inside the department is palpable to the reader. The most experienced and diligent people in the department are now gone, replaced by people whose only qualification appears to be a willingness to carry out the whims of the Trump regime.
There were questions about the millions of dollars Trump received from Egypt are silenced, as an example. It is clear that the department has become a pay-and-play place where the rule of law and the Constitution are secondary. Appointments to the department have been based on whether the person displays loyalty to "the leader". The pardoning of thousands of people found guilty of serious and sometimes heinous crimes are itemized with the details that most of us have been unaware of, beginning, of course, with the blanket pardon of the January 6th insurrectionists who tried to overthrow the government on behalf of Trump. The notorious leader of Honduras was pardoned by Trump even though he was convicted of trafficking millions of dollars' worth of illegal drugs into the United States. Even the fight to pardon Eric Adams, the corrupt mayor of New York, is covered in detail with people resigning rather than carrying out the corrupt aims of the White House.
This is an extremely well-researched and written book, as mentioned earlier and one that every person, especially Trump voters should read. It is frightening to read of what seems to be a detailed map of this regime replacing the rule of law with the rule of Trump. He is proven to be a vengeful, vicious man, bent on targeting anyone who crosses him. It makes the reader worry that even if he manages to survive until 2028, will he willingly give up power.
To mirror a book title written the first Trump administration, "It's even worse than it looks." Reading this book could be compared to reading a novel by George Orwell or reading The Handmaid's Tale. It is frightening to read of how Trump has summarily destroyed the Department of Justice. Hundreds of people in the FBI and within the Attorney General's office have been issued ultimatums to either switch their allegiance to Trump rather than the law, resign, or be fired. The fear inside the department is palpable to the reader. The most experienced and diligent people in the department are now gone, replaced by people whose only qualification appears to be a willingness to carry out the whims of the Trump regime.
There were questions about the millions of dollars Trump received from Egypt are silenced, as an example. It is clear that the department has become a pay-and-play place where the rule of law and the Constitution are secondary. Appointments to the department have been based on whether the person displays loyalty to "the leader". The pardoning of thousands of people found guilty of serious and sometimes heinous crimes are itemized with the details that most of us have been unaware of, beginning, of course, with the blanket pardon of the January 6th insurrectionists who tried to overthrow the government on behalf of Trump. The notorious leader of Honduras was pardoned by Trump even though he was convicted of trafficking millions of dollars' worth of illegal drugs into the United States. Even the fight to pardon Eric Adams, the corrupt mayor of New York, is covered in detail with people resigning rather than carrying out the corrupt aims of the White House.
This is an extremely well-researched and written book, as mentioned earlier and one that every person, especially Trump voters should read. It is frightening to read of what seems to be a detailed map of this regime replacing the rule of law with the rule of Trump. He is proven to be a vengeful, vicious man, bent on targeting anyone who crosses him. It makes the reader worry that even if he manages to survive until 2028, will he willingly give up power.
November 30, 2025
4.5 Clearly deeply sourced, this is compelling investigative journalism with the pacing of narrative non-fiction. Carol Leonnig always delivers - her writing is just on another level compared to other journalists I’ve read.
February 13, 2026
Injustice is an anxiety inducing work yet super important in the recording and investigation of Trump's crimes. The fake elector’s fraud, the sensitive and top-secret documents scandal at Mar-A-Lago, the January 6th riots at the capital -- it is all here and investigated thoroughly. Many times, I found myself getting upset, angry and anxious because I knew that despite the overwhelming evidence of his treasonous crimes, he was reelected and all charges were dropped.
At one point I had to stop and decided to move on to another audiobook for the sake of my mental health and my sanity. It was simply too much to handle. As I write these words the country seems to continue sliding into authoritarianism. Just recently on a right-wing podcast, Trump mentioned his desire for the Republican Party to take over elections. The midterms are this November, and with his lies about the 2020 election being stolen, it looks like this administration is going to use the same playbook and attempt to subvert and steal these upcoming elections.
So many red lines have been crossed, and yet more are being crossed every week. The American public is constantly inundated with news of violent immigration crackdowns and talks of election interference. When will this goddamn madness end? How does it end? Will democracy, the US Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights, all the sacrifices made to uphold democratic and republican values be all for naught?
At one point I had to stop and decided to move on to another audiobook for the sake of my mental health and my sanity. It was simply too much to handle. As I write these words the country seems to continue sliding into authoritarianism. Just recently on a right-wing podcast, Trump mentioned his desire for the Republican Party to take over elections. The midterms are this November, and with his lies about the 2020 election being stolen, it looks like this administration is going to use the same playbook and attempt to subvert and steal these upcoming elections.
So many red lines have been crossed, and yet more are being crossed every week. The American public is constantly inundated with news of violent immigration crackdowns and talks of election interference. When will this goddamn madness end? How does it end? Will democracy, the US Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights, all the sacrifices made to uphold democratic and republican values be all for naught?
November 28, 2025
This was an excellent read. There's been so much going on, that it's often to focus on a single thread amongst all the chaos. Here, the authors do a fantastic job analyzing what's been going on at DOJ, starting with Trump 1, then the paralysis under Biden, and a bit into Trump 2. And it's clear that the people who work(ed) for DOJ, are brilliant lawyers, who believe in the mission, although sometimes under idealized circumstances. Given the amount of talent that has left (willingly or not), and (hopefully temporary) cancellation of the honors program, it will take years for DOJ to build back talent as well as trust within the legal system. SMH.
December 14, 2025
Excellently written. I followed these events in real time, but they were shards. This book puts all the events into context with each other, creating a clear window through which to watch the unfolding of MAGA lawlessness. Highly recommend.
December 12, 2025
I've read a lot on the current state of the United States but few books have scared me this deeply. The knowledge of how corrupted our judicial system is and how unequal to the task of defending it some of the people we put our highest hopes in (ie Robert Mueller, Merrick Garland) is so distressing, I lost sleep over it. I try to stay hopeful (and the daily dose of historical perspective from Heather Cox Richardson helps) but I truly don’t know how we can emerge from this. The shining beacon on the hill is snuffed out, likely forever.
November 27, 2025
Well written book but reality is very sad. AG Garland delayed investigating the higher ups who planned J6 until forced to start investigating after the house J6 investigation evidence made it obvious. He didn’t want to appear political in any way so he delayed justice.
The classified document case against the former president was also delayed. They waited over a year, trying to get the documents back from him voluntarily before deciding to obtain a search warrant. Cameras at Mar-a-Lago showed documents being moved around right before his own lawyers were coming to pick up documents and some boxes were even put on his plane to take elsewhere before the search.
Jack Smith making the decision to try the document case in Florida and then unfortunately the case being assigned to Judge Cannon was a death knell for the case. Judge Cannon did everything she could to delay the case as did the Supreme Court and Cannon then found questionable reasons to dismiss the case. Jack Smith appealed it, but once Trump became president again, all cases against him were null and void.
His first day in office, he pardoned all the J6 participants. Within weeks, he had fired most of the FBI agents and DOJ lawyers involved in any of his court cases or in J6 investigations.
DOJ and the FBI are now expected to work at the directive of Donald Trump, not to the upholding of the constitution
Pam Bondi said on stage at DOJ headquarters on March 14, 2025 “We are so proud to work at the directive of Donald Trump”.
The classified document case against the former president was also delayed. They waited over a year, trying to get the documents back from him voluntarily before deciding to obtain a search warrant. Cameras at Mar-a-Lago showed documents being moved around right before his own lawyers were coming to pick up documents and some boxes were even put on his plane to take elsewhere before the search.
Jack Smith making the decision to try the document case in Florida and then unfortunately the case being assigned to Judge Cannon was a death knell for the case. Judge Cannon did everything she could to delay the case as did the Supreme Court and Cannon then found questionable reasons to dismiss the case. Jack Smith appealed it, but once Trump became president again, all cases against him were null and void.
His first day in office, he pardoned all the J6 participants. Within weeks, he had fired most of the FBI agents and DOJ lawyers involved in any of his court cases or in J6 investigations.
DOJ and the FBI are now expected to work at the directive of Donald Trump, not to the upholding of the constitution
Pam Bondi said on stage at DOJ headquarters on March 14, 2025 “We are so proud to work at the directive of Donald Trump”.
November 20, 2025
Well-researched, well-written, and incredibly informative account of how Donald Trump and those who have supported him have corrupted the Justice Department and the concept of justice in our country over the past decade. I wish every person who voted for Trump would read this book with an open mind to grasp the depth of his harm to all of us. It was painful to read how the Justice Department under Attorney General Merrick Garland failed to meet the unprecedented moment of prosecuting Trump for him many illegal acts and heartbreaking to relive the experience of seeing American voters put a man back in office who has no business being there. I only hope we can survive as a nation long enough to bring Trump and his cronies like Stephen Miller and Emil Bove to account for the harm they have caused.
January 21, 2026
Finished this book 1/18/26. Hardback edition. I
alternated between 2 books. Gave this 4 stars. Carol
Leonnig & Aaron Davis were the authors.
This book was confusing at times because of too
many prosecutors : @ Dept of Justice ( DOJ) at the
FBI and various districts w/ federal prosecutors.
US Attorney General Merrick Garland ran the DOJ. He
was slow to act on crimes associated w/ January
6 insurrection. He overdid wanting to be impartial
& would not talk w/ President Biden, excepting
when called on in a Cabinet meeting. House Select
Committee refused to share transcripts of interviews
witnesses, police, staffers after Jan 6, w/ the DOJ.
Special Counsel Jack Smith waited to see if former Pres.
Trump planned to run again in 2024? While investigating,
getting indictments & hoping for a court date, precious
time was lost. The attorneys for Trump had a strategy of
appeal and delay.
Most in the FBI thought proving the possible felonies
was more important then getting entangled with
misdemeanor charges from Jan. 6th. I agree w/ the FBI.
Garland insisted on felony & misdemeanor charges both.
About 1500 rioters were convicted, and all were pardoned,
but a few, when Trump became President the 2nd time
in Jan. 2025. Some of the felons complained they were
pardoned but still had a felony record. The few that
refused a pardon, admitted their actions were wrong on
Jan. 6th.
The main cases were : Trump and co. trying to un-do
a lawful 2020 election by means to choosing faux electors
from swing states, & expecting Vice Pres. Pence to
recertify the faux electors. There was also the pipe bomb
case, found at Republican National Committee (RNC) and
Democratic National Committee (DNC) both. And later
former President Trump was discovered by the FBI w/
Presidential documents some classified top secret, &
some not, in his Florida home. Once a President leaves
office, the National Archives takes possession, by law,
of his Presidential papers.
This was an interesting book, with some new info about
the 2016 election, Solicitor General, etc. Trump ran for
President in 2016. He needed to replenish his campaign
coffers & chose not to use his own funds. Reportedly
Egypt offered him $10 M for this purpose. True? Such a
candidate is forbidden, by federal law, to accept a
campaign contribution from a foreign country.
alternated between 2 books. Gave this 4 stars. Carol
Leonnig & Aaron Davis were the authors.
This book was confusing at times because of too
many prosecutors : @ Dept of Justice ( DOJ) at the
FBI and various districts w/ federal prosecutors.
US Attorney General Merrick Garland ran the DOJ. He
was slow to act on crimes associated w/ January
6 insurrection. He overdid wanting to be impartial
& would not talk w/ President Biden, excepting
when called on in a Cabinet meeting. House Select
Committee refused to share transcripts of interviews
witnesses, police, staffers after Jan 6, w/ the DOJ.
Special Counsel Jack Smith waited to see if former Pres.
Trump planned to run again in 2024? While investigating,
getting indictments & hoping for a court date, precious
time was lost. The attorneys for Trump had a strategy of
appeal and delay.
Most in the FBI thought proving the possible felonies
was more important then getting entangled with
misdemeanor charges from Jan. 6th. I agree w/ the FBI.
Garland insisted on felony & misdemeanor charges both.
About 1500 rioters were convicted, and all were pardoned,
but a few, when Trump became President the 2nd time
in Jan. 2025. Some of the felons complained they were
pardoned but still had a felony record. The few that
refused a pardon, admitted their actions were wrong on
Jan. 6th.
The main cases were : Trump and co. trying to un-do
a lawful 2020 election by means to choosing faux electors
from swing states, & expecting Vice Pres. Pence to
recertify the faux electors. There was also the pipe bomb
case, found at Republican National Committee (RNC) and
Democratic National Committee (DNC) both. And later
former President Trump was discovered by the FBI w/
Presidential documents some classified top secret, &
some not, in his Florida home. Once a President leaves
office, the National Archives takes possession, by law,
of his Presidential papers.
This was an interesting book, with some new info about
the 2016 election, Solicitor General, etc. Trump ran for
President in 2016. He needed to replenish his campaign
coffers & chose not to use his own funds. Reportedly
Egypt offered him $10 M for this purpose. True? Such a
candidate is forbidden, by federal law, to accept a
campaign contribution from a foreign country.
January 1, 2026
Super depressing but also pretty interesting. I’m a little bit surprised that I ended up liking Zero Fail, Carol Leonnig’s book about the Secret Service a little bit more, but this was still definitely very readable and I thought it did a good job of laying out the decision making processes within the Department of Justice and the FBI from the first Trump administration through the Biden administration and into the second Trump administration.
March 1, 2026
Your political alignment determines how you read this book, or if you will. If Jan 6 is something that makes you cry and feel like our Democracy came under attack, this book is for you.
If you have questions about an incompetent Biden DOJ who sat on the Epstein files and enabled another Trump presidency, this isn't going to make you feel better.
I don't know how this won aclaim. It's so drippingly partisan that I couldn't really enjoy it. I don't view the world through the lens that News Media is real and Vote Blue No Matter Who, so this book left me feeling like every player involved wasn't contributing to a better America, but a more neo-liberal one.
Again. After hearing the arguments it's clear Trump broke the law, but it's also clear that Trump has at least some merit to his claim that DOJ was weaponized against him.
These people are deep state complicit and spent Justice resources doing this instead of unraveling the Israeli blackmail conspiracy that's draining our country of wealth, power, and prestige.
If you have questions about an incompetent Biden DOJ who sat on the Epstein files and enabled another Trump presidency, this isn't going to make you feel better.
I don't know how this won aclaim. It's so drippingly partisan that I couldn't really enjoy it. I don't view the world through the lens that News Media is real and Vote Blue No Matter Who, so this book left me feeling like every player involved wasn't contributing to a better America, but a more neo-liberal one.
Again. After hearing the arguments it's clear Trump broke the law, but it's also clear that Trump has at least some merit to his claim that DOJ was weaponized against him.
These people are deep state complicit and spent Justice resources doing this instead of unraveling the Israeli blackmail conspiracy that's draining our country of wealth, power, and prestige.
December 21, 2025
Fantastic. Methodical. Devastating.
February 5, 2026
I suppose 45-47 would call this book “fake” news, which actually is his own brand of doublespeak. How can you tell he’s lying? His lips are moving. This book covers a multitude of his deceptions, lies and cover ups. Truly sickening. And there’s a whole cadre of lawyers that allowed him to get away with it. And they continue to do so. Stand up for truth and honesty and integrity and democracy and decency and humanity. Read this book!
December 8, 2025
Prepare to be sick. Disgusted. Furious. Sad. Fatigued. Helpless.
I kept thinking of what Mr. Rogers would tell frightened children during scary times: look for the helpers and turn to them.
As adults, where do you turn when the helpers become the hunters? The scenarios outlined in this book will take decades to heal. There will be irreparable scars that will cover generations. Americans have done this to ourselves. There are no innocent spectators. We've all played our parts.
I kept thinking of what Mr. Rogers would tell frightened children during scary times: look for the helpers and turn to them.
As adults, where do you turn when the helpers become the hunters? The scenarios outlined in this book will take decades to heal. There will be irreparable scars that will cover generations. Americans have done this to ourselves. There are no innocent spectators. We've all played our parts.
March 12, 2026
The book "Injustice" by reporters Carol Leonnig and Aaron C. Davis tells the story inside the US Justice Department during Donald Trump’s first term in the White House, how Joe Biden’s administration handled investigations, and how things changed dramatically at the beginning of Trump’s second term. The authors describe years of sharp conflict, fear, and deep strain inside a key public agency. Their account follows efforts to hold a former president responsible for handling secret records. Prosecutors gathered strong proof that Donald Trump kept classified files after leaving office. They also believed he misled his own lawyer about where those files were stored. Evidence showed aides moved boxes to hide them from investigators and from Trump’s attorney. At one point, Trump was recorded speaking about still holding a classified war plan.
The special counsel’s team prepared an unusual plan to charge a former president. Yet legal risks surrounded every step. Prosecutors feared a trial in Florida might place the case before Judge Aileen Cannon. Some officials warned that the outcome could end the case before it truly began. Their concern soon proved real. Cannon dismissed the documents case using a weak legal argument about the special counsel’s role. This decision followed a major ruling by the Supreme Court. The Court expanded presidential immunity for actions tied to official duties. Many Justice Department lawyers felt stunned by how far the ruling went. Some believed it reshaped the balance of power toward the presidency.
Events moved quickly after that. Donald Trump won the election and criminal cases against him faded. Prosecutors then dropped the charges because the Constitution bars trials of sitting presidents. Staff inside the Justice Department worried about their future roles. Trump decided to fire lawyers who had worked on the investigations. He also chose loyal allies for key law enforcement posts. New leaders promised a department that would follow the president’s direction. For many career officials, that shift raised deep concern about the agency’s long-held independence. We are left with the lesson that laws matter, but the people who enforce them shape their power every day.
Memorable Highlights
It didn’t take long for Trump’s transition team to ready the wood chipper. Two days after the election, Mark Paoletta, an attorney leading Trump’s transition team at Justice, warned that Trump could dictate whom and what DOJ investigated, and even who got charged. “He has the duty to supervise DOJ, including, if necessary, on specific cases,” Paoletta wrote on November 7. Trump’s Republican allies in the House the next day also broadcast their plan to help the incoming president settle scores. Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, put Smith at the top of his list. Jordan and Rep. Barry Loudermilk of Georgia sent a letter to the special counsel demanding Smith’s office preserve all records “surrounding the Biden-Harris Administration’s politicized prosecutions of President Donald Trump.”
A little over a week later, Trump named a nominee who struck the most fear into Biden’s outgoing Justice Department team: Kash Patel for FBI director. Patel had displayed cunning in Trump’s first term in national security roles. He’d also made clear his disdain for abiding by traditional democratic guardrails. In podcast appearances and in a book he had written, Government Gangsters, Patel had said he would shutter FBI headquarters and bring the Bureau “to heel” and published a list of sixty supposed “deep state” members. Patel said Republicans should investigate them and other Trump political foes as soon as they had the power to do so.
(Pamela) Bondi’s boast that the DOJ now worked at the directive of the president was something the staffers had never heard said in the building. As the gravity of Bondi’s comment sunk in, several felt a physical discomfort. They saw her bowing down to the occupant of the Oval Office and surrendering the DOJ’s historic independence.
The special counsel’s team prepared an unusual plan to charge a former president. Yet legal risks surrounded every step. Prosecutors feared a trial in Florida might place the case before Judge Aileen Cannon. Some officials warned that the outcome could end the case before it truly began. Their concern soon proved real. Cannon dismissed the documents case using a weak legal argument about the special counsel’s role. This decision followed a major ruling by the Supreme Court. The Court expanded presidential immunity for actions tied to official duties. Many Justice Department lawyers felt stunned by how far the ruling went. Some believed it reshaped the balance of power toward the presidency.
Events moved quickly after that. Donald Trump won the election and criminal cases against him faded. Prosecutors then dropped the charges because the Constitution bars trials of sitting presidents. Staff inside the Justice Department worried about their future roles. Trump decided to fire lawyers who had worked on the investigations. He also chose loyal allies for key law enforcement posts. New leaders promised a department that would follow the president’s direction. For many career officials, that shift raised deep concern about the agency’s long-held independence. We are left with the lesson that laws matter, but the people who enforce them shape their power every day.
Memorable Highlights
It didn’t take long for Trump’s transition team to ready the wood chipper. Two days after the election, Mark Paoletta, an attorney leading Trump’s transition team at Justice, warned that Trump could dictate whom and what DOJ investigated, and even who got charged. “He has the duty to supervise DOJ, including, if necessary, on specific cases,” Paoletta wrote on November 7. Trump’s Republican allies in the House the next day also broadcast their plan to help the incoming president settle scores. Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, put Smith at the top of his list. Jordan and Rep. Barry Loudermilk of Georgia sent a letter to the special counsel demanding Smith’s office preserve all records “surrounding the Biden-Harris Administration’s politicized prosecutions of President Donald Trump.”
A little over a week later, Trump named a nominee who struck the most fear into Biden’s outgoing Justice Department team: Kash Patel for FBI director. Patel had displayed cunning in Trump’s first term in national security roles. He’d also made clear his disdain for abiding by traditional democratic guardrails. In podcast appearances and in a book he had written, Government Gangsters, Patel had said he would shutter FBI headquarters and bring the Bureau “to heel” and published a list of sixty supposed “deep state” members. Patel said Republicans should investigate them and other Trump political foes as soon as they had the power to do so.
(Pamela) Bondi’s boast that the DOJ now worked at the directive of the president was something the staffers had never heard said in the building. As the gravity of Bondi’s comment sunk in, several felt a physical discomfort. They saw her bowing down to the occupant of the Oval Office and surrendering the DOJ’s historic independence.
January 21, 2026
Extremely well researched investigation of the justice depart, focusing on their failure to hold Trump and his cronies responsible for Jan 6 as well as other crimes, although they had the evidence. I wanted to read this in advance of Jack Smith's testimony. In the Merrick Garland DOJ and in the FBI under Chris Wray, process and caution as well as self-imposed time restraints lead to the failure of justice, and we all know what has happened since.
This book is depressing for many reasons, not the least of which is that people with the best of intentions can nevertheless be stymied by processes that are ill-equipped to deal with the onslaught of criminality from a lawless ex and current president and his enablers.
This book is depressing for many reasons, not the least of which is that people with the best of intentions can nevertheless be stymied by processes that are ill-equipped to deal with the onslaught of criminality from a lawless ex and current president and his enablers.
February 2, 2026
Excellent and Foreboding
Reading this today in 2026, it is difficult to see how the U.S. justice system was systematically shredded by Trump and his minions over the last year. Leonnig and Davis do a thorough job in detailing everything leading up to Trump’s second term and the immediate aftershock. If we are to learn from history, this book is a stark lesson in how to see signs of a nation’s destruction.
Reading this today in 2026, it is difficult to see how the U.S. justice system was systematically shredded by Trump and his minions over the last year. Leonnig and Davis do a thorough job in detailing everything leading up to Trump’s second term and the immediate aftershock. If we are to learn from history, this book is a stark lesson in how to see signs of a nation’s destruction.
December 31, 2025
There isn’t a ton of new reporting here but the way it’s put together is very revealing. DOJ is really weak from the first term and Garland and we need to be very concerned.
January 23, 2026
This is one of the most compelling books detailing, painfully so, the threat to the rule of law.
February 7, 2026
Clear, concise information, and unless you are living under a rock, nothing new.
January 17, 2026
While some of the information in the book is well known, the inside story is intriguing and infuriating. Can’t help think about “what if….”.
December 1, 2025
What a tangled web we weave.
So many cooks in the justice department's multiple agencies - each working on different aspects of the shenanigans of, at the time, our previous president. At times, even within a single agency those in charge didn't always agree how or what to include.
I do end up wondering how his defense attorneys rationalize their performance and thought process.
I also had the thought, while reading this, that I don't know if I could sit on a jury and keep an open mind.
So many cooks in the justice department's multiple agencies - each working on different aspects of the shenanigans of, at the time, our previous president. At times, even within a single agency those in charge didn't always agree how or what to include.
I do end up wondering how his defense attorneys rationalize their performance and thought process.
I also had the thought, while reading this, that I don't know if I could sit on a jury and keep an open mind.
March 16, 2026
I will tell you, this one hurt. My book review on INJUSTICE by Carol Leonnig and Aaron C. Davis.
When Everyone Blinks: How Fear, Politics, and Power Gutted American Justice
By Leanne Edwards
There’s a certain myth that Americans like to tell themselves: that justice is blind, impartial, and immune to the tides of politics. It’s a comforting story, but it’s never been entirely true. Even so, the past two decades have seen something more corrosive—a slow, deliberate hollowing out of the very institutions designed to protect the rule of law. Injustice: How Politics and Fear Vanquished America's Justice Department doesn’t just chronicle this decay. It sounds the alarm in a room where almost everyone seems to have already left.
In the book, readers find a detailed post-mortem of the Justice Department’s transformation. Policies once guarded by career professionals—decisions about who gets prosecuted, what counts as a crime, and who is above the law—have become bargaining chips in a game played by politicians and power brokers. The author lays out a pattern: again and again, those with the responsibility to say “no” to power instead said “yes,” or worse, said nothing at all.
But to reduce Injustice to an academic critique would miss the point. The rot it describes isn’t confined to one administration or one party. It’s a contagion that’s spread—slowly, quietly—across the entire landscape of American law and governance.
The Institutions Blink
If the Justice Department was the first domino, the rest fell in quick succession. The American Bar Association, once a proud independent voice, found itself mute. Faced with mounting evidence of political interference, it released carefully worded statements, held panels, and—when it mattered most—shrugged. The group that should have been the firewall instead acted like a fire drill: all noise, no resistance.
You might think a new administration would bring a reckoning. But when the Biden Administration took the reins, the country didn’t get a Rooseveltian crusader. It got something closer to Neville Chamberlain—cautious, conciliatory, and desperate to avoid a fight. The Democratic Party, for its part, kept its powder dry. No alarms were sounded, no lines drawn in the sand. For all their talk of “restoring norms,” the new stewards of justice seemed more interested in maintaining the peace than correcting the course.
Project 2025: The Blueprint Hiding in Plain Sight
If there were any lingering doubts about whether the collapse of American legal norms was accidental or merely opportunistic, Project 2025 should have put them to rest. Here was a detailed, openly published blueprint for dismantling the independence of the Justice Department, remaking the civil service, and consolidating extraordinary power in the hands of a few. It was as radical as it was public: two years before its planned execution, Project 2025 was available for anyone to read.
Yet almost no one in power treated it as the existential warning that it was. The American Bar Association, so quick to issue statements on decorum and ethics, never mounted a campaign to expose the dangers. The Biden Administration, with access to every lever of government and the world’s largest press corps, offered little more than vague promises to “protect democracy.” The Democratic Party, which could have sounded the alarm, instead defaulted to business as usual.
When Project 2025 finally moved from document to reality, the response was not shock but resignation. It was as if the entire political and legal establishment had decided that so long as the threat announced itself in advance, they could claim helplessness when it arrived. The lesson, once again, was simple: the greatest danger to American justice isn’t always a coup in the dark. Sometimes, it’s the slow, public erosion of norms—allowed, even abetted, by those entrusted to defend them.
In the end, Project 2025 was not a secret plot. It was a dare, issued in full view. And America’s institutions, from the Justice Department to the ABA to the highest echelons of political power, blinked on cue.
The Epstein Test
If you’re looking for a single case that lays bare this system-wide collapse, look no further than Jeffrey Epstein. Here was a man with powerful friends, an endless supply of money, and a criminal enterprise hiding in plain sight. When the time came for the law to act, what did we get? A sweetheart deal, brokered behind closed doors, signed off by those tasked with upholding the law. Prosecutors blinked. Judges blinked. The Department of Justice blinked. All the while, the American Bar Association stood by, watching the storm pass.
When Epstein was finally re-arrested years later, it felt less like justice and more like a delayed reaction—an aftershock with no real reckoning. The message was clear: if you have enough money, enough connections, or enough secrets, the law might frown at you, but it will rarely bare its teeth.
Connecting the Dots
It’s tempting to treat these failures as isolated incidents—bad apples, bad timing, bad luck. But the truth is more damning. Injustice makes it impossible to ignore the pattern. When the Justice Department caves, the Bar Association looks away, and political leaders calculate risk instead of defending principles, the whole system becomes complicit.
Even the language used to excuse this behavior—“institutional norms,” “prudence,” “bipartisanship”—is a kind of camouflage. These words conceal a basic fact: when the moment demanded courage, our institutions chose comfort.
Why It Matters
For the average reader—someone who doesn’t spend their days parsing legal doctrine or following congressional hearings—these failures might feel distant, even abstract. But they’re not. Every time the system blinks, it sends a message: there are two sets of rules. One for the powerful, and one for everyone else.
If the people tasked with defending justice won’t do it—if the lawyers, judges, politicians, and watchdogs all sit quietly while the powerful run roughshod—then “justice” becomes just another word. The very idea of accountability dissolves.
The Hard Questions
So where does that leave us? Injustice doesn’t offer easy answers. It doesn’t pretend that a new administration or a few well-meaning reforms can fix what’s broken. Instead, it forces us to ask: what is the meaning of justice when everyone with the power to defend it looks away?
Can a democracy survive when its institutions are this hollow? Is there a way to restore faith in the system, or is faith itself just another casualty?
The Reckoning Still to Come
To write about these failures is to risk cynicism. But cynicism is a luxury we can’t afford. The lesson of Injustice—and of the Epstein case, and the ABA’s silence, and the Biden Administration’s caution, and Project 2025’s open dare—is that the work of defending justice never ends. It demands vigilance, and it demands that someone—anyone—refuse to blink.
For now, the story of American justice is a cautionary tale. The alarm has been sounded. The question is whether anyone will listen.
End Notes
Injustice: How Politics and Fear Vanquished America's Justice Department analyzes the transformation of the DOJ and the broader implications for American democracy.
Project 2025 was a real, widely published plan to overhaul the federal government, with a particular focus on the Justice Department and executive power.
The American Bar Association’s public actions and statements in recent years are a matter of public record and have been criticized for insufficient response to political encroachment.
The Jeffrey Epstein case involved a controversial non-prosecution agreement in 2008, widely reported on and later subject to public and legal scrutiny.
The Biden Administration’s approach to Justice Department independence and its measured posture on institutional reform is well-documented in both mainstream and legal media.
This article is meant as a synthesis and interpretation of public events, legal scholarship, and the arguments of Injustice—with the aim of connecting patterns that, taken together, depict a wider crisis in American rule of law.
When Everyone Blinks: How Fear, Politics, and Power Gutted American Justice
By Leanne Edwards
There’s a certain myth that Americans like to tell themselves: that justice is blind, impartial, and immune to the tides of politics. It’s a comforting story, but it’s never been entirely true. Even so, the past two decades have seen something more corrosive—a slow, deliberate hollowing out of the very institutions designed to protect the rule of law. Injustice: How Politics and Fear Vanquished America's Justice Department doesn’t just chronicle this decay. It sounds the alarm in a room where almost everyone seems to have already left.
In the book, readers find a detailed post-mortem of the Justice Department’s transformation. Policies once guarded by career professionals—decisions about who gets prosecuted, what counts as a crime, and who is above the law—have become bargaining chips in a game played by politicians and power brokers. The author lays out a pattern: again and again, those with the responsibility to say “no” to power instead said “yes,” or worse, said nothing at all.
But to reduce Injustice to an academic critique would miss the point. The rot it describes isn’t confined to one administration or one party. It’s a contagion that’s spread—slowly, quietly—across the entire landscape of American law and governance.
The Institutions Blink
If the Justice Department was the first domino, the rest fell in quick succession. The American Bar Association, once a proud independent voice, found itself mute. Faced with mounting evidence of political interference, it released carefully worded statements, held panels, and—when it mattered most—shrugged. The group that should have been the firewall instead acted like a fire drill: all noise, no resistance.
You might think a new administration would bring a reckoning. But when the Biden Administration took the reins, the country didn’t get a Rooseveltian crusader. It got something closer to Neville Chamberlain—cautious, conciliatory, and desperate to avoid a fight. The Democratic Party, for its part, kept its powder dry. No alarms were sounded, no lines drawn in the sand. For all their talk of “restoring norms,” the new stewards of justice seemed more interested in maintaining the peace than correcting the course.
Project 2025: The Blueprint Hiding in Plain Sight
If there were any lingering doubts about whether the collapse of American legal norms was accidental or merely opportunistic, Project 2025 should have put them to rest. Here was a detailed, openly published blueprint for dismantling the independence of the Justice Department, remaking the civil service, and consolidating extraordinary power in the hands of a few. It was as radical as it was public: two years before its planned execution, Project 2025 was available for anyone to read.
Yet almost no one in power treated it as the existential warning that it was. The American Bar Association, so quick to issue statements on decorum and ethics, never mounted a campaign to expose the dangers. The Biden Administration, with access to every lever of government and the world’s largest press corps, offered little more than vague promises to “protect democracy.” The Democratic Party, which could have sounded the alarm, instead defaulted to business as usual.
When Project 2025 finally moved from document to reality, the response was not shock but resignation. It was as if the entire political and legal establishment had decided that so long as the threat announced itself in advance, they could claim helplessness when it arrived. The lesson, once again, was simple: the greatest danger to American justice isn’t always a coup in the dark. Sometimes, it’s the slow, public erosion of norms—allowed, even abetted, by those entrusted to defend them.
In the end, Project 2025 was not a secret plot. It was a dare, issued in full view. And America’s institutions, from the Justice Department to the ABA to the highest echelons of political power, blinked on cue.
The Epstein Test
If you’re looking for a single case that lays bare this system-wide collapse, look no further than Jeffrey Epstein. Here was a man with powerful friends, an endless supply of money, and a criminal enterprise hiding in plain sight. When the time came for the law to act, what did we get? A sweetheart deal, brokered behind closed doors, signed off by those tasked with upholding the law. Prosecutors blinked. Judges blinked. The Department of Justice blinked. All the while, the American Bar Association stood by, watching the storm pass.
When Epstein was finally re-arrested years later, it felt less like justice and more like a delayed reaction—an aftershock with no real reckoning. The message was clear: if you have enough money, enough connections, or enough secrets, the law might frown at you, but it will rarely bare its teeth.
Connecting the Dots
It’s tempting to treat these failures as isolated incidents—bad apples, bad timing, bad luck. But the truth is more damning. Injustice makes it impossible to ignore the pattern. When the Justice Department caves, the Bar Association looks away, and political leaders calculate risk instead of defending principles, the whole system becomes complicit.
Even the language used to excuse this behavior—“institutional norms,” “prudence,” “bipartisanship”—is a kind of camouflage. These words conceal a basic fact: when the moment demanded courage, our institutions chose comfort.
Why It Matters
For the average reader—someone who doesn’t spend their days parsing legal doctrine or following congressional hearings—these failures might feel distant, even abstract. But they’re not. Every time the system blinks, it sends a message: there are two sets of rules. One for the powerful, and one for everyone else.
If the people tasked with defending justice won’t do it—if the lawyers, judges, politicians, and watchdogs all sit quietly while the powerful run roughshod—then “justice” becomes just another word. The very idea of accountability dissolves.
The Hard Questions
So where does that leave us? Injustice doesn’t offer easy answers. It doesn’t pretend that a new administration or a few well-meaning reforms can fix what’s broken. Instead, it forces us to ask: what is the meaning of justice when everyone with the power to defend it looks away?
Can a democracy survive when its institutions are this hollow? Is there a way to restore faith in the system, or is faith itself just another casualty?
The Reckoning Still to Come
To write about these failures is to risk cynicism. But cynicism is a luxury we can’t afford. The lesson of Injustice—and of the Epstein case, and the ABA’s silence, and the Biden Administration’s caution, and Project 2025’s open dare—is that the work of defending justice never ends. It demands vigilance, and it demands that someone—anyone—refuse to blink.
For now, the story of American justice is a cautionary tale. The alarm has been sounded. The question is whether anyone will listen.
End Notes
Injustice: How Politics and Fear Vanquished America's Justice Department analyzes the transformation of the DOJ and the broader implications for American democracy.
Project 2025 was a real, widely published plan to overhaul the federal government, with a particular focus on the Justice Department and executive power.
The American Bar Association’s public actions and statements in recent years are a matter of public record and have been criticized for insufficient response to political encroachment.
The Jeffrey Epstein case involved a controversial non-prosecution agreement in 2008, widely reported on and later subject to public and legal scrutiny.
The Biden Administration’s approach to Justice Department independence and its measured posture on institutional reform is well-documented in both mainstream and legal media.
This article is meant as a synthesis and interpretation of public events, legal scholarship, and the arguments of Injustice—with the aim of connecting patterns that, taken together, depict a wider crisis in American rule of law.
December 7, 2025
On the walls of the U.S. Department of Justice headquarters is the inscription: "No free government can survive that is not based on the supremacy of the law. Where law ends, tyranny begins. Law alone can give us freedom." Throughout most of its history, the "righteous mission" of the Department has been to uphold the supremacy of the law—to enforce the laws fairly and impartially, to keep the country safe from threats, and to protect Americans' rights as citizens, even from the actions of the government itself.
Twice in my lifetime that lofty mission has been endangered by corrupt presidents who saw themselves as above the law.
When the Watergate break-in took place, I was a young college student. In President Nixon's actions to try to evade responsibility for the break-in, he damaged the integrity of the Justice Department, for example, by the "Saturday night massacre", when he fired the attorney general and the deputy in order to fire the special prosecutor who was investigating him. Ultimately, however, the supremacy of the law was reaffirmed by the courts and by Congress. The Supreme Court endorsed the principle that no one, including the president, is above the law when it unanimously ruled that Nixon must release the Watergate tapes. And when Congress moved on a bipartisan basis to hold him accountable, Nixon resigned rather than face certain impeachment and conviction. The only failure of the supremacy of the law was when President Ford pardoned Nixon, allowing him to avoid facing accountability for his crimes in a court of law.
As I tried to understand the events of Watergate, I turned to two excellent investigative books written by Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, All the President's Men and The Final Days. Now, as I try to make sense of the most recent and far more destructive assault on our nation's justice system by another corrupt president who sees himself as above the law, I turned to this book, which is another excellent investigative report written, again, by two Post reporters, Carol Leonnig and Aaron C. Davis.
After the attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021, the acting U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, Michael Sherwin, responded to a question about whether the Justice Department would look at President Trump's role in the attack, saying "I'm going to stand by my earlier statement: We're looking at all actors here, and anyone that had a role. If the evidence fits the elements of a crime, they’re going to be charged." So, I was expecting that Trump would be investigated and, most likely, charged.
A couple months later, when it was already becoming clear that then ex-President Trump was planning for another run for president, I remember thinking about the implication for a potential prosecution. To avoid charges of interference in the 2024 campaign, Trump would ideally need to be tried before the end of 2022, which meant he would need to be indicted by the end of 2021. The investigation would need to move quickly.
As we now know, the investigation did not move quickly. Attorney General Merrick Garland didn't appoint a special counsel, Jack Smith, to investigate Trump's actions regarding the January 6 attack until November 2022. Smith didn't bring indictments until July 2023 on the mishandling of classified documents and until August 2023 on the January 6 case. As we know, the classified documents case was ultimately thrown out by Judge Aileen Cannon, a corrupt Trump appointee. And the clock eventually ran out on the January 6 case as the Supreme Court took its sweet time in ruling on presidential immunity.
Why did it take so long for the Justice Department to act? This is where this book, by reporting on the internal discussions and decisions that were being made, really makes a contribution to our understanding of the story. I learned that for the first 15 months of the Biden administration, there were essentially no investigations of the former president, either by the FBI or by any of the prosecutors that potentially had jurisdiction for his law breaking. Only the House January 6 Committee, created six months after the attack, was actively investigating the president's role in the attack.
The story of why the Justice Department was so slow and reluctant to investigate is infuriating. While Merrick Garland seems to have been well intentioned, desiring to restore the Department's reputation as a nonpartisan and impartial institution, his fear of being criticized by Republicans led him to undermine the principle of equal enforcement of the law by repeatedly overlooking Trump's potential crimes until the evidence became overwhelming. And the FBI simply appears to have been cowed by their experiences during the first Trump administration under Attorney General William Barr, to the point that they were afraid to investigate the former president.
We'll never know whether an expedited investigation and prosecution would have led to Trump being convicted and imprisoned. Certainly, Judge Cannon went far beyond the normal bounds of a district judge in favoring Trump's defense in a case that seemed like it should have been a slam-dunk conviction. In the book we learn that the decision to charge Trump in Miami where there was a high risk that the case would be assigned to Cannon, was not inevitable; Smith could have charged Trump in Washington, DC, but chose not to.
The Supreme Court, in its decision on presidential immunity, went against the clear views of the founding fathers that the President should be subject to the laws like any other citizen. (See The Federalist Papers: No. 69, which says, "The President of the United States would be liable to be impeached, tried, and, upon conviction of treason, bribery, or other high crimes or misdemeanors, removed from office; and would afterwards be liable to prosecution and punishment in the ordinary course of law.") Yet, despite Congress never having passed a law giving the president immunity from prosecution, in Trump v United States the Supreme Court decided to make up out of whole cloth a doctrine of "absolute immunity" for the president's official acts, thus giving President Trump in his second term carte blanche to ride roughshod over the law and the Constitution.
The three sections of the book cover the Department of Justice under the first Trump administration, the Biden administration, and the first few months of the second Trump administration. In the final section, we see the near total destruction of the notion of the supremacy of the law, as under Attorney General Pam Bondi the Department has eliminated functions that were designed to keep it ethical and has become a tool for Trump seeking vengeance on his political enemies.
Sadly, it will not be easy to rebuild an ethical and impartial Department of Justice after Trump leaves office. Will we as a nation ever regain a bipartisan consensus that the supremacy of the law is the principle around which the Department should be organized? I hope so but must admit that it sadly may not happen.
Twice in my lifetime that lofty mission has been endangered by corrupt presidents who saw themselves as above the law.
When the Watergate break-in took place, I was a young college student. In President Nixon's actions to try to evade responsibility for the break-in, he damaged the integrity of the Justice Department, for example, by the "Saturday night massacre", when he fired the attorney general and the deputy in order to fire the special prosecutor who was investigating him. Ultimately, however, the supremacy of the law was reaffirmed by the courts and by Congress. The Supreme Court endorsed the principle that no one, including the president, is above the law when it unanimously ruled that Nixon must release the Watergate tapes. And when Congress moved on a bipartisan basis to hold him accountable, Nixon resigned rather than face certain impeachment and conviction. The only failure of the supremacy of the law was when President Ford pardoned Nixon, allowing him to avoid facing accountability for his crimes in a court of law.
As I tried to understand the events of Watergate, I turned to two excellent investigative books written by Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, All the President's Men and The Final Days. Now, as I try to make sense of the most recent and far more destructive assault on our nation's justice system by another corrupt president who sees himself as above the law, I turned to this book, which is another excellent investigative report written, again, by two Post reporters, Carol Leonnig and Aaron C. Davis.
After the attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021, the acting U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, Michael Sherwin, responded to a question about whether the Justice Department would look at President Trump's role in the attack, saying "I'm going to stand by my earlier statement: We're looking at all actors here, and anyone that had a role. If the evidence fits the elements of a crime, they’re going to be charged." So, I was expecting that Trump would be investigated and, most likely, charged.
A couple months later, when it was already becoming clear that then ex-President Trump was planning for another run for president, I remember thinking about the implication for a potential prosecution. To avoid charges of interference in the 2024 campaign, Trump would ideally need to be tried before the end of 2022, which meant he would need to be indicted by the end of 2021. The investigation would need to move quickly.
As we now know, the investigation did not move quickly. Attorney General Merrick Garland didn't appoint a special counsel, Jack Smith, to investigate Trump's actions regarding the January 6 attack until November 2022. Smith didn't bring indictments until July 2023 on the mishandling of classified documents and until August 2023 on the January 6 case. As we know, the classified documents case was ultimately thrown out by Judge Aileen Cannon, a corrupt Trump appointee. And the clock eventually ran out on the January 6 case as the Supreme Court took its sweet time in ruling on presidential immunity.
Why did it take so long for the Justice Department to act? This is where this book, by reporting on the internal discussions and decisions that were being made, really makes a contribution to our understanding of the story. I learned that for the first 15 months of the Biden administration, there were essentially no investigations of the former president, either by the FBI or by any of the prosecutors that potentially had jurisdiction for his law breaking. Only the House January 6 Committee, created six months after the attack, was actively investigating the president's role in the attack.
The story of why the Justice Department was so slow and reluctant to investigate is infuriating. While Merrick Garland seems to have been well intentioned, desiring to restore the Department's reputation as a nonpartisan and impartial institution, his fear of being criticized by Republicans led him to undermine the principle of equal enforcement of the law by repeatedly overlooking Trump's potential crimes until the evidence became overwhelming. And the FBI simply appears to have been cowed by their experiences during the first Trump administration under Attorney General William Barr, to the point that they were afraid to investigate the former president.
We'll never know whether an expedited investigation and prosecution would have led to Trump being convicted and imprisoned. Certainly, Judge Cannon went far beyond the normal bounds of a district judge in favoring Trump's defense in a case that seemed like it should have been a slam-dunk conviction. In the book we learn that the decision to charge Trump in Miami where there was a high risk that the case would be assigned to Cannon, was not inevitable; Smith could have charged Trump in Washington, DC, but chose not to.
The Supreme Court, in its decision on presidential immunity, went against the clear views of the founding fathers that the President should be subject to the laws like any other citizen. (See The Federalist Papers: No. 69, which says, "The President of the United States would be liable to be impeached, tried, and, upon conviction of treason, bribery, or other high crimes or misdemeanors, removed from office; and would afterwards be liable to prosecution and punishment in the ordinary course of law.") Yet, despite Congress never having passed a law giving the president immunity from prosecution, in Trump v United States the Supreme Court decided to make up out of whole cloth a doctrine of "absolute immunity" for the president's official acts, thus giving President Trump in his second term carte blanche to ride roughshod over the law and the Constitution.
The three sections of the book cover the Department of Justice under the first Trump administration, the Biden administration, and the first few months of the second Trump administration. In the final section, we see the near total destruction of the notion of the supremacy of the law, as under Attorney General Pam Bondi the Department has eliminated functions that were designed to keep it ethical and has become a tool for Trump seeking vengeance on his political enemies.
Sadly, it will not be easy to rebuild an ethical and impartial Department of Justice after Trump leaves office. Will we as a nation ever regain a bipartisan consensus that the supremacy of the law is the principle around which the Department should be organized? I hope so but must admit that it sadly may not happen.
December 5, 2025
Just like the vast majority of books that cover this particular era, this is a well-written account of a profoundly depressing time in our country's history. What really stands out is the continued naivete demonstrated by a number of officials who can't quite seem to grasp they are dealing with a totally amoral person.
December 9, 2025
A documentary and historic prelude to the ultimate demise of the most criminal businessman to inhabit the White House. I am happy we have a first hand account of his criminal activity, forever in print. If treated like an ordinary citizen, he would be behind bars now. But the weak leadership of the DOJ killed that dream.
December 20, 2025
This seems to me to be a very necessary book. Someone had to chronicle the ways in which the Justice Department has proved vulnerable to political pressure, especially from the Trump administration, but those same vulnerabilities--as with the vulnerabilities we have seen in 2025 in media independence generally--are not new, only supercharged by Trump and his people. Sometimes it seemed the authors were more interested in condemning Trump than they were with illuminating the whole story of what happened at Justice.
Clearly this team from the Washington Post has learned a thing or two from their fellow Post reporter, Bob Woodward; every significant source is introduced with a bit of puffery that I've become familiar with from Woodward's books. Reading between the lines once sees a negotiation between the source and the reporters, perhaps implicitly, that if they give what the authors want, they will not be targeted themselves but shown in a flattering light. This is probably necessary to get cooperation, and no doubt sources thinking about talking will see how previous sources have been treated and feel more confident that they won't regret talking, at least that is how Woodward does it and seems to be going on here as well.
Granted the horrors visited on our government by Trump and Co. merit condemnation, but in a book that seeks to expose what was really happening during these events, the writers had an obligation to present the whole story, not just the story of those who were the losers in the battle for control over Justice.
The authors are too clearly partisan for me to have faith in their reporting. The way they relate stories, the ways in which they treat single sources as representative, and how they frame the events is clearly aimed at making the case against Trump with as much force as they can muster. It is a prosecution more than it is an attempt to write a history. There is no defense presented here, no recognition that things are rarely honestly portrayed when set out in stark black and white. Sometimes they just leave out inconvenient facts.
For example, like much of the liberal press during the election that Trump lost, they treat certain things Trump said in isolation because they certainly were statements worthy of gotcha journalism at the time, but now you'd expect an attempt to go deeper than gotcha. They talk of Trump's shocking comment that the Proud Boys should "stand back and stand by", which was easy to interpret at the time as a order to the Boys to stand ready if Trump needed them, a chilling idea. However, Trump at the time clarified and that clarification is treated as unworthy of noting, saying that he ONLY said "stand back and stand by," but in fact soon after he attempted to walk it back: Trump said when asked about this earlier comment, "I don't know who the Proud Boys are. I mean, you'll have to give me a definition, because I really don't know who they are. I can only say they have to stand down and let law enforcement do their work." Believable or not, it can't be ignored, unless it serves your purposes to do so.
Good people on both sides, another Trump comment that fueled gotcha journalism. As if Trump's statement that there were good people on both sides of a protest that he made when asked to condemn ALL of those who marched in support of him because their side of the protest included white supremacist groups. There thousands of Trump supporters there to support Trump, obviously, not marching to show solidarity with the Proud Boys, but the press insisted that Trump condemn the whole array of people in the protest after violence occurred. The authors here also treat that as if Trump were stating his allegiance with white supremacy. (Now I'm not saying Trump isn't sympathetic with white supremacy, but I don't think you can take "good people on both sides" as demonstrating this, any more than BLM supporters can be condemned because anarchists at their protests torched cop cars.)
I won't try to critique the chapters or anything like that, but from my perspective the books reads like the prosecutions case against Trump, Barr, Bondi and the rest, and what I'd like to see is a book that gives the other side a chance to raise a defense, which rarely happens here. Of course it is not the job of the prosecution to make the defense's case. Only after the passage of time are we likely to get a book with enough perspective to do justice for both sides.
I give it three stars because it is a story that needs to be told, and if the only ones likely to do that are partisan, that is better than the story going untold. Sadly, though, this book won't be read by Trump supporters, and even if they start it, they will never finish it because of its partisan telling. I can hear their verdict in advance. "Fake news," they will say and dismiss it.
Clearly this team from the Washington Post has learned a thing or two from their fellow Post reporter, Bob Woodward; every significant source is introduced with a bit of puffery that I've become familiar with from Woodward's books. Reading between the lines once sees a negotiation between the source and the reporters, perhaps implicitly, that if they give what the authors want, they will not be targeted themselves but shown in a flattering light. This is probably necessary to get cooperation, and no doubt sources thinking about talking will see how previous sources have been treated and feel more confident that they won't regret talking, at least that is how Woodward does it and seems to be going on here as well.
Granted the horrors visited on our government by Trump and Co. merit condemnation, but in a book that seeks to expose what was really happening during these events, the writers had an obligation to present the whole story, not just the story of those who were the losers in the battle for control over Justice.
The authors are too clearly partisan for me to have faith in their reporting. The way they relate stories, the ways in which they treat single sources as representative, and how they frame the events is clearly aimed at making the case against Trump with as much force as they can muster. It is a prosecution more than it is an attempt to write a history. There is no defense presented here, no recognition that things are rarely honestly portrayed when set out in stark black and white. Sometimes they just leave out inconvenient facts.
For example, like much of the liberal press during the election that Trump lost, they treat certain things Trump said in isolation because they certainly were statements worthy of gotcha journalism at the time, but now you'd expect an attempt to go deeper than gotcha. They talk of Trump's shocking comment that the Proud Boys should "stand back and stand by", which was easy to interpret at the time as a order to the Boys to stand ready if Trump needed them, a chilling idea. However, Trump at the time clarified and that clarification is treated as unworthy of noting, saying that he ONLY said "stand back and stand by," but in fact soon after he attempted to walk it back: Trump said when asked about this earlier comment, "I don't know who the Proud Boys are. I mean, you'll have to give me a definition, because I really don't know who they are. I can only say they have to stand down and let law enforcement do their work." Believable or not, it can't be ignored, unless it serves your purposes to do so.
Good people on both sides, another Trump comment that fueled gotcha journalism. As if Trump's statement that there were good people on both sides of a protest that he made when asked to condemn ALL of those who marched in support of him because their side of the protest included white supremacist groups. There thousands of Trump supporters there to support Trump, obviously, not marching to show solidarity with the Proud Boys, but the press insisted that Trump condemn the whole array of people in the protest after violence occurred. The authors here also treat that as if Trump were stating his allegiance with white supremacy. (Now I'm not saying Trump isn't sympathetic with white supremacy, but I don't think you can take "good people on both sides" as demonstrating this, any more than BLM supporters can be condemned because anarchists at their protests torched cop cars.)
I won't try to critique the chapters or anything like that, but from my perspective the books reads like the prosecutions case against Trump, Barr, Bondi and the rest, and what I'd like to see is a book that gives the other side a chance to raise a defense, which rarely happens here. Of course it is not the job of the prosecution to make the defense's case. Only after the passage of time are we likely to get a book with enough perspective to do justice for both sides.
I give it three stars because it is a story that needs to be told, and if the only ones likely to do that are partisan, that is better than the story going untold. Sadly, though, this book won't be read by Trump supporters, and even if they start it, they will never finish it because of its partisan telling. I can hear their verdict in advance. "Fake news," they will say and dismiss it.
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