Project 2025's plans for the Justice Department

Dig in with me.

Project 2025 is a frightening, authoritarian missive with Christian nationalism values at its core that aims to dismantle large swaths of the federal government and transform that which remains into a politicized right-wing machine. It opposes diversity as a value, aggressively so in its anti-woman, anti-Black and anti-brown, anti-immigrant, and anti-LBGTQ proposals.

I have had Project 2025 on my mind for a while, but the truth is that I didn’t want to write about it until I could actually start giving it the attention it deserves. Now that the U.S. Supreme Court has released its final opinions of the term — including several making Project 2025 easier to implement — I have been able to start my work on this.

Today, I start with a look through the Justice Department section, which is highlighted throughout with what I saw as key aspects.

There will be much more, taking different forms, over the summer. Dig into the Mandate for Leadership with me. Pay attention. This matters — regardless of what Donald Trump might say.

1. This is not a plan that Trump can “torch,” “disavow,” or whatever Mike Allen is editing his Axios headline to say today. These are Trump’s people, up and down the line. Yes, it is true that no plans designed ahead of time would be implemented in precisely that way — but that is true of Trump’s own statements about his plans, too. He has no principles, so his plans are always flexible. That said, these are the plans being created for him by his people.

The Department of Justice section makes that clear:

The section is written by Gene Hamilton, a former senior official in the Trump administration whose name is all over litigation across the country today because he is the legal director of America First Legal. America First Legal is, in essence, the MAGA legal organization. It is run by Trump senior advisor Stephen Miller, despite his not being a lawyer, and Hamilton is the second-in-command.

After Trump feigned ignorance about Project 2025 (leading to the Axios kerfuffle), Miller lapdoggingly followed on, insisting, “I have never been involved with Project 2025, not one word.” One, I maintain (and have long maintained) that Miller is the worst person who served in the Trump administration, so, forgive me if I believe him even less than I believe Trump.

Beyond that, though, let’s look at Hamilton’s “Author’s note” in his Justice Department section of Project 2025:

Regardless of what Miller wants to claim now, his organization very much is involved in Project 2025 — which not only undercuts Miller’s claim, but also Trump’s effort to distance himself from all of this.

2. The 28-page Justice Department section has a primary purpose of turning DOJ into an aggressive enforcer of the Trump agenda across the federal government and down into state and local governments. “Ensure the assignment of sufficient political appointees throughout the department,” the plan states outright, noting that the number of political appointees serving in past administrations — including “particularly” during the Trump administration — was not enough “to stop bad things from happening through proper management or to promote the President’s agenda.”

The program explicitly questions how the new administration should relate to other branches, asserting that the administration should “use its independent resources and authorities to restrain the excesses of both the legislative and judicial branches.”

Goals include ending independence of the Justice Department from the White House, ending the ability of divisions and offices within DOJ to exercise independent judgment, and ending respect for federalism where there is disagreement with Trump policies.

This is not an overstatement. It is a statement of fact.

• DOJ’s independence should be gone:

• Divisions and offices must be reined in, including the FBI:

• Federalism should not be respected:

Notably, within that section, Project 2025 goes so far as to recommend “initiat[ing] legal action” against local district attorneys who disagree with Trump’s overcriminalization policies.

3. Project 2025’s DOJ section talks about cuts and consolidation repeatedly, all with the aim of increasing strict adherence to political goals with the benefits of eliminating independent judgment and government accountability. The plan would cut positions and offices, and it explicitly acknowledges that this will make government less responsive.

One specific, dramatic area in which its goals are laid out would be the FBI:

It also calls for legislation to “eliminate the 10-year term for the Director” of the FBI because, Project 2025 insists, the “Director of the FBI must remain politically accountable to the President in the same manner as the head of any other federal department or agency.”

The plan calls for subsuming the Office of Public Affairs into the Senate-confirmed Office of Legislative Affairs — “the two offices should be folded into one for more efficiency and proper coordination“ — conflating the goals of an office that is supposed to work to inform with an office that is aimed, again, at advancing Trump’s agenda.

In a section that suggests “consolidating” several functions across DOJ’s many offices — including legal counsel, human resources, and public relations functions — the plan acknowledges its focus is actually on consolidating power: “While local access to appropriate personnel and resources is important, there are inefficiencies and redundancies across the department that result in a bureaucratic, Rube Goldberg–style design that ultimately hinders the department’s mission.”

4. The plan is extremely anti-immigrant. This makes sense in light of Hamilton’s background, and it would have DOJ take on an increased role in the Miller-Hamilton anti-immigrant efforts.

“The DOJ and its leadership must intentionally prioritize fulfillment of the department’s immigration-related responsibilities in the next conservative Administration,” Project 2025 states, detailing a number of steps to that end — including issuing guidance to U.S. attorneys about prosecuting immigration offense and assisting the Department of Homeland Security in seeking to circumvent sanctuary cities.

The plan also states that “the next Administration should take a creative and aggressive approach to tackling these dangerous criminal organizations at the border,” which “could include use of active-duty military personnel and National Guardsmen to assist in arrest operations along the border—something that has not yet been done.” 

5. The plan calls for vigorous enforcement of the Comstock Act, including specifically calling for a “campaign” to prosecute attempts to mail abortion medication.

This is explicit, specific, and there is no reason to be secure that this U.S. Supreme Court would block such a move.

6. The plan attacks diversity efforts as being backed by “an unholy alliance of special interests, radicals in government, and the far Left.” Yes, “unholy.” After describing “so-called diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) offices” as “vehicles for unlawful discrimination, it calls for turning the Civil Rights Division into a bastardization of itself. It would, essentially, turn this pillar of the department into a governmental America First Legal.

All of this — and we’ve barely scratched the surface.