DEGRADATION COMPLETE

What? Me Worry?

This week’s issue of The Economist magazine featured a cover with “Department of Justice/Degradation in Progress.” That’s a fairly stunning rebuke of the leading law enforcement agency in the United States, and from a foreign publication to boot. Had I been the editor, I might have run the second line as “Degradation Complete.”

The mission of America’s DOJ is to uphold the law, to keep the country safe and to protect civil rights. The current actors in the DOJ are doing exactly the opposite—refusing to follow the law (especially court procedures), doing nothing to keep the country safe (grandstanding ICE agents arresting or shooting persons legally entitled to be in the United States) and basically firing the entire civil rights protection section.

More than 3400 lawyers have left the DOJ since early 2025—and hundreds more have been fired or have left executive branch federal agencies. This tumultuous turnover certainly does nothing to uphold our laws or to keep our country safe. Many Assistant United States Attorneys resigned rather than do what they considered the unlawful bidding of the current President of the United States.

The DOJ is, and never has been, the office of the personal attorney of the President of the United States. It is painful to watch the complete dissolution of a once-admired agency, where most attorneys were considered ethical and worked in service of the laws. It is terrifying to see the personal attorney of the President vying for the position of Attorney General—a position to represent the people, not just the whims of one person. If there is just one benefit to this theater, it is that perhaps more people will vote against such an authoritarian regime in November. Tell them Edmund Randolph sent you.