Historically, the Justice Department has been understood by both Democrat and Republican administrations as serving the people—not the president. As Ted Olson, Ronald Reagan’s chief legal counsel, wrote in a memo to the attorney general in 1982,

It's only been two and a half weeks and they've already accessed the Treasury Department and are fooling around with the computer system that pays America's bills. They've destroyed the Office of Personnel Management and USAID.

On her first day as attorney general, Bondi issued orders to review Trump prosecutions and create a "weaponization" of government working group.