DOJ Revokes Rules Restricting Partisan Activity by Political Appointees

Attorney General Pam Bondi last week rescinded a Biden-era memo that restricted partisan activity by political appointees at the Justice Department.

The move comes at a time when the DOJ has been accused of engaging in highly partisan prosecutions of President Donald Trump’s political enemies through repeat failed criminal indictments and the attempted strong-arming of law firms. There’s also growing concerns that the White House could meddle in this year’s midterm elections, as the president has talked about his desire to “nationalize” elections with federal control.

The Feb. 27 memorandum, obtained NOTUS, is titled “updated guidance on the restrictions on political activities by non-career employees.” The move revokes a July 8, 2024, memo that listed 16 things political appointees cannot do, including “use their official authority or influence to interfere with or affect the result of an election.”

Additionally, that memo banned: running for office, endorsing political candidates, attending rallies and serving as a delegate to a party convention. That memo formalized limits that had traditionally been recognized at the DOJ, where presidential appointees oversee the law enforcement agency’s national security, criminal, civil rights and antitrust investigations.

In the past, the DOJ has issued internal guidance reminding all employees that they are bound by the Hatch Act, the 1939 law that limits certain kinds of political activities by federal workers. A 2014 memo calls itself a “periodic reminder” and a 2022 memo hailed some “new restrictions.” But the department has also held political appointees to a higher standard, considering them as “further restricted employees” like the career officials who oversee sensitive national security investigations and criminal cases.

Although political appointees are by their very nature placed in their positions of power because of their political affinities, previous administrations saw it as necessary to uphold the law enforcement agency’s image as an impartial government institution.

Bondi’s new memo says she is revoking anything that “goes beyond the restrictions set forth in the Hatch Act.” The DOJ did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Biden-era memo prohibited top officials from engaging in the kind of partisan actions that could weaponize the department’s law enforcement capabilities. The 2024 memo said officials could not “solicit or discourage the political activity of any person who is a participant in any matter before the department,” which, in effect, meant the DOJ could not use the threat of investigations to coerce people.

“I think this is unnecessarily opening the door to further politicization of the Department of Justice by political appointees. For one thing, they supervise all the career employees. It’s good public policy to keep in place,” said Eric Columbus, a former government lawyer who was a political appointee when he was a senior counsel to the deputy attorney general during the Obama administration.

As the DOJ’s yet-to-be-updated website explains, political appointees were subject to “further restricted” status “to ensure there is not an appearance that politics plays any part in the department’s day-to-day operations.”

Ryan Crosswell, a former public corruption prosecutor at the DOJ who left at the start of the second Trump administration and is now running for Congress in Pennsylvania, is concerned about whether this policy shift could affect the U.S. attorneys who oversee the DOJ’s regional offices across the country.

“The political appointees are all part of the top leadership of the DOJ, and in particular, the U.S. attorneys,” he said. “And as the chief law enforcement agencies in their own federal districts, if anyone should not be engaged in political activities, it’s them.”

“As a matter of pure leadership, why would you want a situation where the career line attorneys can’t engage in political activities and their leaders can? And if they’re doing it, they would appear to be further politicization of a Department of Justice that is supposed to apply the law even handedly without political influence and considerations,” he added.

Bondi’s new memo includes a footnote that claims political appointees who fall under a subset of employees that are already restricted “by statute,” like those at the FBI or prosecutors in the criminal and national security divisions, are still held to a higher standard. But it’s unclear how that will be interpreted internally.

The new memo says that Jolene Lauria, a Biden administration holdover who is the DOJ’s “designated agency ethics official,” will issue additional guidance on how the Hatch Act applies to the agency’s employees.