dispatched 260 analysts to investigate debunked claims of vote-rigging in the 2020 election in Georgia, which Mr Trump maintains he won. In January the FBI seized records related to that race in Georgia’s Fulton County. Last week a judge quashed the DoJ’s subpoena seeking names of poll workers there: an “overly broad fishing expedition is bad and is not allowed”, he said. The DoJ will be at the tip of the spear if Mr Trump attempts to intervene in the midterm elections in November. Ominously, it has all but shut the unit that normally monitors election-related crimes. A prosecutor who left that section last year says he thinks the administration is “taking steps to be in a position to put its thumb on the scale in 2026 or 2028”. Election-year training for FBI agents and DoJ staff, once mandatory, has been cancelled. The department seems to have no intention to stand up the National Election Command Post, which normally monitors irregularities. Instead, election deniers populate the DoJ, including several who worked to overturn the 2020 result. Recently they threatened to prosecute election officials who let non-citizens vote. No issue has consumed the attention of the Trump administration like immigration. By September the FBI had diverted a fifth of its roughly 14,000 agents to immigration enforcement. What is striking is not that the president has made immigration a priority—he said he would do as much— but the manner in which DoJ lawyers are pursuing those cases. In the autumn Mr Blanche showed up in Chicago, the site of a surge of agents dubbed “Operation Midway Blitz”, and decried “an organised effort by domestic terrorists to actually injure and hurt” those agents. Then his deputy told prosecutors to “go big and go loud” against protesters. A prosecutor in Chicago who left earlier this year says that every unit there, including ones focused on cyber and national-security crime, was dragooned into protester cases, which became a “dreaded thing”. He says the pressure from the front office to file charges was so great that prosecutors had to present a compelling argument not to do so. That is the inverse of how decisions are usually made.
Agents arrested nearly 4,000 immigrants during Midway Blitz. The crackdown in Chicago also became a stark example of how to drive away lawyers. In the US attorney’s office, which has seven criminal sections, each chief serving at the start of Midway Blitz has quit. Seven of their 15 deputies and at least a quarter of the 90 or so staff prosecutors have left, too. Across the country, there have been hundreds of shaky cases brought against protesters. Many collapse before trial. A jury rebellion awaits those that do make it that far. Ten of 13 resulted in an acquittal as of March, according to Steven Salky, a defence lawyer who tracks unusual charging decisions. By contrast, across all federal trials last year, the acquittal rate was 12%. Some cases have veered into the absurd. A jury took 35 minutes to acquit a man accused of pointing a laser at the president’s helicopter. Once unusual practices are more common. In October prosecutors charged six Democratic activists and politicians in Chicago with conspiring to impede a federal agent, in a case known as the “Broadview Six”. After a judge reviewed transcripts from the grand-jury sitting—held in secret, without judges or defence lawyers—she said she had never seen such misbehaviour by prosecutors. Among other no-nos, they had dismissed sceptical jurors (including one who called the case “a crock of shit”) who might have been unlikely to return an indictment. In May prosecutors dropped the case. A consequence of all this is that the DoJ is losing credibility in the courts. Increasingly judges are calling out lapses by government lawyers, saying they cannot take them at face value. The judge overseeing the Broadview Six case said she believed that “most government attorneys are doing the best they can to do the right thing”. Then she added: “That trust has been broken.” More judges are now requiring depositions and documents to verify that the government’s claims are true, and threatening sanctions when its lawyers obfuscate or fail to comply. In the first 14 months of Mr Trump’s second term, according to Just Security, a site for legal commentary, the DoJ gave courts inaccurate information in nearly 100 instances. The problem is acute in immigration cases. The administration’s mass- detention policy led to a twentyfold spike in “habeas” petitions by detained immigrants suing for release between 2024 and 2025. Just Security found nearly 800 instances of non-compliance with court orders in habeas cases,
and 13 sanctions and contempt-of-court findings against DoJ lawyers. The administration’s response has been to label any judge who disagrees with it a “rogue activist”. Mr Blanche has called it a “war” on the judiciary. Seen one way, that fighting talk reflects something positive: the guardrails in the judicial system holding up, to the administration’s dismay. Already the department’s alumni are asking what it will take to reconstitute it when Mr Trump leaves office. A former prosecutor says he and his former colleagues want to return. Still, the appeal of the department diminishes somewhat with the prospect that the next person overseeing it may sack you, or harness the law for their personal ends. For decades the DoJ enjoyed some protection from the politics that have fractured America. That era seems over. ■ Stay on top of American politics with The US in brief, our daily newsletter with fast analysis of the most important political news, and Checks and Balance, a weekly note that examines the state of American democracy and the issues that matter to voters. This article was downloaded by zlibrary from https://www.economist.com//united-states/2026/07/16/donald-trumps-transformation- of-the-department-of-justice-will-be-hard-to-undo
Democrats challenge a big Hollywood tie-up A dozen states are suing to block Paramount’s merger with Warner Bros July 16th 2026 THE LONG-RUNNING corporate dramedy over Paramount Skydance’s merger with Warner Bros Discovery has entered a new act. On July 13th Rob Bonta (pictured), California’s top prosecutor, announced that a coalition of 12 attorneys-general would sue to halt the studios’ megadeal. At a press conference in front of the Hollywood sign, he argued that the $111bn merger was illegal and insinuated that David Ellison, Paramount’s boss, was acting like a mafia don. “David Ellison may think this is an offer we can’t refuse,” said Mr Bonta. “But I am here to say he’s wrong.” Paramount claims that its merger with Warner Bros would allow it to compete with streamers, such as Netflix, which have been eating the studios’ lunch. But instead of considering this broader competition, the states focused
on legacy markets in which they say the merger would reduce competition. The complaint, filed in federal court in California, alleges that the deal would give the combined company greater leverage over cinemas and cable distributors, allowing it to extract more favourable terms that could ultimately lead to higher ticket prices and cable bills. The legal merits will be considered in court, but the lawsuit is part of a bigger saga, too. Antitrust enforcement has long been characterised by bipartisan co-operation. However it is an increasingly political endeavour, on the local and national level. States are pursuing more aggressive antitrust action. Although that trend predates Mr Trump’s return to office, it has gathered pace as Democratic attorneys-general argue that his administration has become less willing to challenge mergers. “The federal government is no longer a partner in this work,” said Oregon’s attorney-general, Dan Rayfield, in May. States are responding by expanding their own capabilities. An exodus of lawyers from Washington, DC, has strengthened their teams, while California, Colorado and Washington state have begun requiring advance notice of many large mergers. Legislatures elsewhere may follow suit. That alone does not explain why all 12 attorneys-general who brought the Paramount lawsuit are Democrats. Republican attorneys-general still frequently join such cases. Only recently Tennessee’s Jonathan Skrmetti helped lead a bipartisan antitrust suit against Live Nation, a big concert promoter. But antitrust enforcement is increasingly being used as a way to convey a broader political message, allowing Democratic officials to argue that they are protecting consumers while Mr Trump looks after wealthy allies. In announcing the suit, Mr Bonta claimed that “antitrust enforcement is a check on billionaires currying favour with the president so he will do their bidding.” Larry Ellison, David’s tech-billionaire father, donated $45m to a non-profit supporting Mr Trump’s re-election in 2024, according to the Wall Street Journal. On “The Town”, a podcast beloved by Hollywood insiders, Mr Bonta also said the lawsuit was about “affordability”, one of the Democratic Party’s favourite buzzwords ahead of the midterm elections.