The exodus from DOJ will have repercussions for years | The Excerpt

On the Monday, April 13, 2026, episode of The Excerpt podcast: The Department of Justice is in turmoil. What’s on the DOJ’s agenda and what can it hope to accomplish in the back half of President Donald Trump’s term? USA TODAY Justice Correspondent Aysha Bagchi joins The Excerpt to share her insights.

Hit play on the player below to hear the podcast and follow along with the transcript beneath it. This transcript was automatically generated, and then edited for clarity in its current form. There may be some differences between the audio and the text.

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Cody Godwin:

The Department of Justice is in turmoil. The previous controversial Attorney General, Pam Bondi is out and thousands of employees have either been fired, put on leave or quit. So what's on the DOJ's agenda and what can it hope to accomplish in the back half of President Donald Trump's term?

Hello and welcome to USA TODAY's The Excerpt. I'm Cody Godwin, filling in for Dana Taylor. Joining me now to talk about the DOJ's transformation and what it means for accountability is USA TODAY Justice correspondent, Aysha Bagchi. Aysha, thanks for joining us today.

Aysha Bagchi:

I'm glad to be here, Cody.

Cody Godwin:

Talk us through leadership now at the Department of Justice. Who's in charge and what is their agenda?

Aysha Bagchi:

The new acting Attorney General is Todd Blanche. He was the deputy under Pam Bondi before she left. So in a certain sense, there's a continuity going on here. And according to Todd Blanche, his agenda isn't really all that different from what we saw before. He did very quickly after starting, announce a new fraud division, basically a comprehensive effort at the Justice Department to tackle fraud, pulling in attorneys from different parts of the DOJ, pulling in attorneys from U.S. attorney's offices around the country, but that has already been a priority in the Trump administration. And he was asked about whether the president had different priorities for him compared to his predecessor. And he basically said he doesn't know why the president fired Pam Bondi, only the president knows, and didn't indicate that there's been a change in directive based on him assuming the new role.

So we're going to have to wait and see if he changes the agenda at all. He praised Pam Bondi in his first remarks, so he didn't take any issue with how she led the department.

Cody Godwin:

What do we know about him, about the acting AG Todd Blanche?

Aysha Bagchi:

Todd Blanche has a very close personal relationship with Donald Trump. That's something we definitely know about him. He does have some experience as a former federal prosecutor, but most recently before Trump retook the Oval Office, Todd Blanche served as Trump's personal defense lawyer. I saw him every day at the Manhattan criminal trial that former President Trump then was attending. He sat next to Donald Trump's side. He seemed to be the lawyer among the defense team that was closest to Donald Trump. And when Trump would leave the courtroom and talk to the cameras, which he did very frequently throughout this multi-week trial, there would be cameras in the hallway, Todd Blanche would often be standing right next to Trump while Trump made remarks to the press about what he thought about the trial. So they formed what seems to have been a really close relationship through that experience where Todd Blanche was representing Donald Trump in a personal capacity.

So now, we're seeing someone who has that personal experience take on a role that traditionally was designed to be in a significant measure, separate from the president, independent from the president. There's some longstanding norms from the time of Watergate where the Justice Department is supposed to have that kind of independence and not be improperly influenced by the White House. We do know that Todd Blanche has this personal relationship with Donald Trump, but he also has experience in the Justice Department preceding the president and working as the deputy under Pam Bondi.

Cody Godwin:

As of today, what are the most pressing cases on the DOJ's docket and what's at risk with this leadership change?

Aysha Bagchi:

A major priority for the Justice Department is immigration. There's a huge ramp up in the number of immigration cases that it is handling compared to the Biden Administration. And it has shifted attorneys around in the Justice Department to try to tackle that. ProPublica did an analysis that found that the DOJ had about tripled the number of cases it was bringing compared to the Biden Administration in a similar period of time. And it had also increased the number of immigration cases it was prosecuting compared to Donald Trump's first term. So that's a big priority. There are some flashy cases winding their way through the courts related to that. Some litigation about ICE enforcement tactics, like for example, the factors that ICE federal immigration agents are using to stop and detain people whom ICE agents suspect may be in the country without authorization.

And then a major case at the Supreme Court right now, birthright citizenship. This was one of Donald Trump's opening acts when he retook the oval law office. He issued an executive order that purported to end the tradition of the idea that anyone born within the United States territory, practically anyone, was by birth and by right, a U.S. citizen. And Trump issued this new policy that says that if you are born here, but your parents only have temporary authorization to be here or don't have authorization at all, then you don't have birthright citizenship going forward. The Supreme Court held oral arguments on this recently. They did ask a lot of tough questions of the DOJ, but we will have to see how the court ends up ruling.

Cody Godwin:

A lot of lawyers have left the DOJ since President Trump took office. What do we know about their departures and how it might impact the Justice Department's work?

Aysha Bagchi:

Yes. According to data from the Office of Personnel Management, thousands of lawyers have left the Justice Department since Trump retook office. And those are lawyers leading from various parts of the DOJ. I was talking to someone today who was describing to me lawyers who have left from what was traditionally the tax division. Part of the reorganization of the Justice Department has been getting rid of that devoted tax division and putting those lawyers in other parts of the DOJ. But it's an area of the government that brings in a lot of revenue and they've had enormous losses.

There's also a part of the DOJ that handles environment and natural resources issues. Analyses have shown that perhaps a third of those lawyers have left. And people who've left the department say that this has a really negative effect on morale. A lot of people don't want to join the DOJ right now because they don't think that they'll have the job security that they once counted on as a reason for people to take these jobs when really, they could be making more money in the private sector.

And they worry sometimes about what they may be asked to do. And if they may be asked to do things that are too political or ask them to do something that might violate ethical rules of conduct for lawyers, some of that may be having effects on the money that the DOJ is bringing in. There's one analysis from Earth Justice, which is an environmental legal nonprofit that found that in the first 11 months of the current Trump Administration, the environmental enforcement group within the DOJ imposed about $15 million of civil fines. And that compared to in the first 19 days of 2025 when Biden was still in office, the same group imposing about $590 million of civil fines having to do with environmental issues.

That could be influenced by lawyers leaving. It could also be influenced by new priorities, but many lawyers who've left the Justice Department say that morale is at a low point right now and that lawyers are overworked, missing deadlines more frequently. And now, many experienced litigators are thinking twice about whether they want to join the Justice Department at this time.

Cody Godwin:

Recent news is that Bondi will not testify at an upcoming congressional hearing about the Epstein files. What happens next?

Aysha Bagchi:

TBD, to be determined. Pam Bondi, that's true. After she left, the DOJ has said that she was subpoenaed as the Attorney General because she's not the Attorney General anymore. The position of the department seems to be that she is no longer required to testify under the subpoena, but that doesn't mean that this issue goes away. James Comer, the Congressman who heads the House Oversight Committee Republican Congressman, has indicated that he'll still be communicating with Pam Bondi about potentially setting a time for her to testify. And interestingly, because the DOJ didn't invoke some sort of privilege that has to do with Pam Bondi as a private individual, saying maybe there's some sort of executive privilege that means she can't share the things that she knows about how the Justice Department handles the Epstein files. It doesn't seem to preclude the House Oversight Committee from issuing a new subpoena or arguing that the old subpoena is still legally effective even if Pam Bondi has left office.

So it's not at all clear that Pam Bondi has escaped needing to testify before the committee, but it is a Republican controlled committee. So we're still going to have to see what happens going forward. We don't know if part of the reason that she was pushed out of the DOJ was to avoid this sort of testimony, but it doesn't necessarily mean that she will avoid it in the end.

Cody Godwin:

How is the public responding to all of these upsets at the DOJ?

Aysha Bagchi:

Yes. Well, when it comes to the Epstein files, we've definitely heard from alleged victims of Jeffrey Epstein who say that Pam Bondi's ousting doesn't affect what the DOJ should be doing in this space and doesn't impact the accountability that they expect both the Justice Department and Pam Bondi personally to face in Congress when it comes to understanding how the Epstein files have been handled, understanding the level of transparency that the Justice Department has provided. And ultimately, many of these investigations, these probes are really about understanding how the Justice Department has handled the controversy surrounding Jeffrey Epstein going back many years, going back from before this administration and getting to the bottom of those questions. There's a huge public outcry or uproar about how this case was handled, and also a lot of public suspicions, which are just suspicions. They're only that, but suspicions that more people may have been involved in Jeffrey Epstein's crimes than the people who've been held accountable so far.

So that has been something that has really created a reaction in the public. And more broadly, I think many critics of the Justice Department under the current Trump Administration celebrated Pam Bondi's exit, but it's not clear whether this change is going to ultimately make those critics happier. There's no indication that Todd Blanche is really changing course from what Pam Bondi was doing before. When the president nominates someone to kind of permanently fill the role, that person will have to go through Senate confirmation.

So it's not just a situation where the president appoints someone on his own, but it may be the case that the president appoints someone who critics of the administration will also be unhappy with. It does seem that the president didn't have issues with Pam Bondi when it came to her too vigorously enforcing his agenda. If anything, it may be the opposite that we wanted someone who was more aggressive in ways in which she might have disappointed him, even if they had a good personal relationship. So we'll have to wait and see how the public feels as these changes continue to unfold.

Cody Godwin:

There's been a widespread assertion that President Trump has weaponized the DOJ through various means. For example, going after perceived enemies, hanging his image on the actual building. What's the latest here?

Aysha Bagchi:

Yes. This may have been one of the reasons Pam Bondi was fired. Donald Trump really praised her when he announced her exit and celebrated things she had accomplished, but at the end of the day, he asked her to go. So there is some reporting to suggest that he was frustrated, not only with the ongoing Jeffrey Epstein controversy involving the Justice Department, but also about the Justice Department's struggles and failures to successfully prosecute targets of the President. He explicitly called on social media for former FBI Director James Comey and for New York Attorney General, Letitia James, to face charges. And Pam Bondi actually appointed someone that Trump had essentially asked her to appoint to bring those charges. And that person, Lindsey Halligan, secured indictments, but those cases were dismissed. The Justice Department failed. It tried at least two more times to get an indictment against Letitia James and grand juries wouldn't do it.

It hasn't been able to bring new charges against James Comey. And there are other investigations that are ongoing into other political opponents of the President, critics of the President, people like Democratic Senator Adam Schiff from California, Jerome Powell, the Federal Reserve Chair that also haven't resulted in charges. So clearly, there are still investigations going on and the president may want to see prosecutions actually come from that. Todd Blanche hasn't pushed back at all from what the DOJ is doing there. He was asked about this in his first press conference, and he basically argued that because the president had faced criminal charges when he was out of office, that the administration is countering what he described as a kind of weaponization of the DOJ.

But there are some really important and significant differences with what's going on now. I've talked to lots of former DOJ lawyers who've talked about that. Elections have consequences. Someone will come in and they want you to prioritize how fentanyl gets into the U.S. They want you to put a bigger emphasis on immigration. Those sorts of policy priorities are normal, but what is not normal is for the president to be calling for specific people to be indicted. And then for people sometimes who have very little prosecutorial experience, very little experience in the DOJ to be the ones seeking these charges. So wait and see, but there are ongoing concerns about politicization of the DOJ.

Cody Godwin:

Any parting thoughts on what's happening with the DOJ?

Aysha Bagchi:

Just, we're going to have to wait and see. There have been such monumental changes already in the first year of Trump's presidency that time's going to really tell what effect this is having on the Justice Department's work. I've talked to a lot of former DOJ lawyers who are especially concerned that while there is something a bit normal about DOJ policy changing between administrations, there's always a balance that took place between continuity and change because you had people who were part of an institution and how they thought about it is that your job is to effectuate some of the policy preferences of the new administration. The president is democratically elected. So that's a way in which the people have a voice in what the Justice Department is doing, but you're also enforcing laws that sometimes have been on the books for a long time and went through Congress to get there.

And you're also making sure that when a new president comes along, you're there to enforce that president's agenda as well. And with the major changes that have taken place, getting rid of so many lawyers, people thinking twice about whether they even want to work at the Justice Department, those could be things that are hard to undo, that could be lasting even after the current administration is gone. And that's something really to be watching when you think about the significance of the changes that are happening at the department right now.

Cody Godwin:

Aisha Bagchi is a justice correspondent for USA TODAY. Asia, thanks so much for joining us.

Aysha Bagchi:

Thanks. Glad to be here.

Cody Godwin:

Thanks to our senior producer, Kaely Monahan for her production assistance. Our executive producer is Laura Beatty. Let us know what you think of this episode by sending a note to [email protected]. Thanks for listening. We'll be back tomorrow morning with another episode of USA TODAY's The Excerpt.