Barbara McQuade, Columnist

This Justice Department Is Redefining Who the Enemy Is

November 11, 2025 at 11:00 AM UTC

Barbara McQuade is a professor at the University of Michigan Law school, a former US attorney and author of the forthcoming book, "The Fix: Saving America from the Corruption of a Mob-Style Government."

Are they the president’s enforcers or do they work for the American people?
Photographer: Joe Raedle/Getty Images

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“It’s a war.”

Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, the number two official at the US Department of Justice, made that statement last week not about his agency’s efforts to fight drug cartels or terrorism, but about the DOJ’s battle against the judiciary. The remark could just as easily be the motto of the Trump Justice Department.