Justice Department veterans are noticing a pattern a month after President Trump took office: The department seems to be cutting breaks to people loyal to the president. DOJ dropped a case against former Nebraska Republican Rep. Jeff Fortenberry. Prosecutors in Nashville withdrew from an investigation of Republican Rep. Andy Ogles, who introduced a bill that would clear the way for Trump to serve a third term in office. Then DOJ dismissed the case against New York City Mayor Eric Adams. Adams is a Democrat, but has said he's open to cooperating with Trump's immigration policies, including on deportations. Stephen Saltzburg, a Justice Department veteran from the Reagan and Bush 41 eras, says the word "alarm" is an understatement about what's happening at the department: Prosecutors seem to be backing away from cases against people with ties to President Trump, NPR reports.
"They're patterns that we haven't really seen in the past actions of the Department of Justice," Saltsburg said. "And none of the patterns inspire a lot of confidence that the department is being even-handed in its approach to cases." Some of the department's actions have had stark consequences. The fallout from the Adams case is continuing: Seven prosecutors quit rather than move to drop the case; they said it looked like an unlawful quid pro quo. Adams and his lawyer flatly denied that. Separately, four of his top aides and deputy mayors announced Monday they're resigning. Peter Zeidenberg, who used to prosecute public corruption cases, says senior leaders at Justice didn't seem to hide they were acting for political reasons to secure Adams' cooperation with immigration agents. "The politicization of the Justice Department seems like it's complete," he said. Justice Department source say the fear is the department will on one hand move to help Trump's friends get out of trouble and on the other use its vast powers of investigation and prosecution against people who have criticized the president. Chad Mizelle, chief of staff to Attorney General Pam Bondi, said this Justice Department wants to focus on its core function of prosecuting dangerous criminals, not pursuing "politically motivated witch hunts." Bondi herself has said she wants to go after the weaponization of the justice system, issuing a memo on her first day at work to create a working group to do just that. To start, she seems to be focused on people who helped bring cases against Trump.