The Next Attorney General Should Enforce the Law, Not Perform Populism Theater
The Department of Justice is not meant to be a tool to garner political wins.
Checks & Balances is a newsletter of the Society for the Rule of Law Institute
By Matthew P. Cavedon
Todd Blanche, the acting United States Attorney General, appeared in Congress last week for his confirmation hearing. There was much talk on the administration’s weaponization of the Department of Justice against its political opponents.
These concerns, of course, are valid. Yet focusing only on the DOJ’s partisan misuse misses another important problem: the Department cares more about political theater than enforcing the law. Much of its dysfunction arises from that fact.
Take a look at the record. Under Attorney General Pam Bondi, the DOJ used its powers of investigation and prosecution as a populist gimmick, driven by popular grievances against the administration’s perceived enemies, from Harvard to the NFL. Real reform means more than just stopping the DOJ’s attacks on the left. It means resisting the Department’s misuse for populist ends. Senate should demand that throughout the confirmation process.
Since returning to office, President Trump has decided there’s virtually no popular complaint that can’t be fixed with a federal inquiry or indictment, and DOJ has gladly obliged. Universities, long the subject of conservative frustration, were one of the first groups to meet the brunt of the new DOJ. The Department swept in to demand that schools “screen out [foreign] students who demonstrate hostility to the United States, its allies, or its values.” In 2025 alone, the government extractedover $400 million in settlements from just four universities.
Other DOJ targets have done nothing more than follow the laws of economic reality. While Trump’s one-page “Great Healthcare Plan” has failed to spur legislative action for lower prices, he has directed the attorney general to go after drug companies for unspecified “anti-competitive practices.”
As Trump’s “Liberation Day” trade war drove up prices for food and fertilizer, he ordered DOJ to create a special “Food Supply Chain Security Task Force” and start prosecuting any agricultural businesses engaging in “criminal collusion.” Of course, going after American farmers could conflict with populism, so Trump highlighted his special concern about “foreign-controlled companies.”
It is true that medicine and food are essential and, certainly, too expensive. This owes more to ham-handed government interventions than shadowy industry conspiracies, though at least the priority is rightly placed. But under Trump and AG Bondi, the DOJ has taken on populist crusades over far lesser matters. The president quickly prioritized DOJ going after Ticketmaster. “America’s live concert and entertainment industry is the envy of the world,” an executive order breathlessly declared, but “it has become blighted by unscrupulous middlemen.” Whatever merit antitrust enforcement may have here, it is overshadowed by the president making his own show of calling in the federal prosecutors to protect the Swifties rather than letting career prosecutors decide what merits their attention.
A year later, another pillar of mass entertainment needed “urgent national action,” even in the absence of congressional action. Trump sent in AG Bondi to the defense of college football and basketball, supposedly under existential threat from changes concerning “pay-for-play” and eligibility rules. Again, an executive order from the White House, rather than the judgment of seasoned lawyers, decided what merited a DOJ inquiry.
This spring, the president quarterbacked yet another DOJ campaign concerning sports. Perhaps still smarting over his failed attempt to buy an NFL franchise 40 years ago, and bolstered by populist anger dating back to Colin Kaepernick’s national-anthem protests, DOJ just launched a new investigation into the league’s livestreaming deals.
Americans deserve a Justice Department that prosecutes crimes instead of chasing headlines. Every hour spent investigating whichever industry or institution has become the administration’s latest political target is an hour not spent on the Department’s core responsibilities. So the Senate will have a choice: Does it want a DOJ that acts with the restraint expected in a constitutional republic—or one that is chasing the next standing ovation?
Matthew P. Cavedon is the Director of the Project on Criminal Justice at the Cato Institute.
The Society for the Rule of Law Institute publishes guest essays to foster thoughtful discussion on issues relating to the Constitution and the Rule of Law. The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Society for the Rule of Law Institute.