Of all the powers of the presidency, Donald Trump has made clear that regaining control of the Justice Department is most vital to his agenda, both political and personal.
If he wins the election, Trump will take office as a defendant in two federal criminal cases: one active case and another that has been dismissed but that special counsel Jack Smith is seeking to reinstate. Trump’s first, deeply personal order of business will be ensuring those prosecutions come to a swift end.
And he has spoken openly about one of his other primary goals: seeking retribution against his perceived political enemies. His list of targets is long and growing: his opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris; President Joe Biden and his family; Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who successfully prosecuted Trump in one of his other criminal cases; and members of the House Jan. 6 select committee, just to name a few. He has threatened to prosecute a host of unnamed Democratic lawyers, political operatives, “illegal voters” and election officials, as well as judges and court officials. He has pledged not only to fire Smith but also to kick him out of the country.
With such draconian plans, Trump is eager to have a chance at a do-over when it comes to choosing appointees to run the Justice Department. He believes, people close to him say, that he erred in his handling of appointments to the department during his term in office. This time around, they say, he won’t risk another Sally Yates or Jim Comey, holdovers from the Obama administration who refused to comply with Trump’s orders. Nor will he take a gamble on anyone who might not prove sufficiently loyal, like Jeff Sessions, the attorney general Trump installed and then swiftly excoriated after Sessions recused himself from investigations into Russian interference in the 2016 election.
“From their perspective, they didn't do things right the first time. They didn’t clear house enough,” said a former Trump Justice Department official who was granted anonymity to speak candidly about inner workings. “There were insiders thwarting their objectives.”
In a second Trump term, this person said, “loyalty is the most important thing. Competency is probably second.”
“I think he’s looking for somebody who’s totally obsequious,” said Ty Cobb, a former Trump administration lawyer who became a critic of the former president.
Cobb predicted that for secretary of state and the two key “money positions” — Treasury secretary and chair of the Federal Reserve — Trump will name more experienced, better qualified candidates, “whereas in the Justice Department, he really wants somebody there who will do his bidding.”
The Trump campaign says it hasn’t discussed who would serve in a second Trump administration. But people close to the process say conversations about prospective candidates for Justice Department jobs have begun among people including Trump transition co-chair Howard Lutnick, legal advisor Boris Epshteyn, former Trump administration official Kash Patel, as well as the former president’s eldest sons, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump.
Who, then, will Trump seek to install as attorney general, deputy attorney general or FBI director? Who will he tap to lead the Office of Legal Counsel or the most powerful U.S. attorney’s offices, like Manhattan and D.C.?
Trump aides have reportedly considered a wide array of candidates, from some predictable names to polarizing choices such as U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, who won Trump’s favor when she dismissed the federal criminal case that accused him of illegally hoarding classified documents after he left office.
POLITICO asked more than a dozen Trump allies, former Trump administration officials and others who have worked closely with Trump about the most likely candidates to fill some of these jobs.
Here’s what they said.
A Trump co-defendant who nearly ran DOJ before
Many close to Trump named Jeffrey Clark as an obvious candidate for a top Justice Department job. For most of Trump’s presidency, he was a little-known official who served as an assistant attorney general for environmental issues. But he rose to prominence after the 2020 election, when he proved his loyalty by pressuring other Justice Department officials to support Trump’s attempt to overturn Biden’s victory.
In January 2021, during his last-ditch attempt to hold onto power, Trump considered appointing Clark as the acting attorney general, with the expectation that Clark would have the Justice Department promote Trump’s false claims of voter fraud. Trump backed off when other senior officials threatened a mass resignation if Trump went through with the plan.
Because of his role in Trump’s election plot, Clark was indicted alongside Trump in Georgia. He was also named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the special counsel’s federal election case against Trump. And a disciplinary panel has recommended that Clark’s law license be suspended for two years.
In Trump’s view, however, those are anything but disqualifications.
People familiar with the former president’s thinking say he sees Clark as obedient and allegiant enough to satisfy Trump, while also having enough familiarity with the department and how to use it to carry out Trump’s wishes.
A trio of far-right senators
One roadblock Trump is sure to encounter during the process of selecting appointees is Senate confirmation, which is necessary for positions including attorney general and FBI director, among others. Trump aides are aware that even if the Senate is Republican-led, polarizing figures like Clark — and many of Trump’s other desired picks — are likely to face rough confirmation battles. To solve that, at least temporarily, he is expected to appoint people in an “acting” capacity, which doesn’t require the consent of the Senate.
But there are some Trump boosters who probably could win confirmation relatively easily. One is Sen. Mike Lee, the Utah Republican who converted from a Trump skeptic to a vocal supporter. Trump has toyed with putting Lee in a powerful post before; in 2018, he interviewed Lee about a Supreme Court seat. Like Clark, Lee tried to keep Trump in power following the 2020 election.
And there’s Sen. Josh Hawley, the Missouri Republican who became one of the most visible supporters of Trump’s effort to overturn the election results. Hawley is one of the Senate’s most conservative members, and of the candidates on Trump’s radar for a top DOJ post, he is among the most traditionally well qualified: He attended Yale Law School and clerked for Chief Justice John Roberts.
Missouri’s other Republican senator, Eric Schmitt, has also caught Trump’s eye. Like Hawley, Schmitt was Missouri’s attorney general before becoming a senator, and Schmitt used his state job to challenge Covid restrictions like mask and vaccine mandates. He also supported legal efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election in Trump’s favor. Since joining Congress in 2023, the freshman Republican has taken several steps to ingratiate himself to Trump, including vowing to oppose major legislation and Biden nominees in the wake of Trump’s criminal conviction in Manhattan.
Sitting senators often face an easy confirmation process when nominated for executive branch positions, and Lee, Hawley and Schmitt fit that mold.
Trump’s criminal defense lawyers
In the past year, as he confronted four criminal cases, including one that went to trial, Trump has been surrounded by lawyers, and some of them are now under consideration for Justice Department jobs.
Todd Blanche, the lawyer who led Trump’s criminal defense in the former president’s Manhattan trial, is one name on the list. Though Trump lost that trial, with a jury finding him guilty of 34 criminal counts, Blanche can take credit for securing Trump several plum victories, including getting his federal criminal case in Florida dismissed well in advance of the election and getting his sentencing in Manhattan postponed until after Election Day.
Blanche is a former federal prosecutor in the Manhattan U.S. attorney’s office who, in spite of his representation of Trump, remains well regarded by many in and around that office, and some see him as a natural candidate to lead the office should Trump win in November. Blanche is also said to be under consideration for several top Justice Department jobs in Washington.
Likewise, Blanche’s law partner Emil Bove, who represents Trump alongside Blanche in the Manhattan criminal trial as well as the former president’s two federal criminal cases, is under consideration. Bove, too, is a former Manhattan federal prosecutor who was co-chief of the national security unit.
While both Blanche and Bove have the credentials for a senior job in the department, neither is seen as as ideological or as unflinchingly loyal as some of the others on the list.
A handful of former Trump officials
Also in the running is a varied group of former Trump administration officials and staffers.
One is John Ratcliffe, the former director of national intelligence. Ratcliffe, who is now co-chair of the Center for American Security at the America First Policy Institute, a Trump-aligned think tank, became a Trump acolyte during the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. Then a Texas congressman, Ratcliffe became a sharp critic of Robert Mueller’s probe.
Ratcliffe has had trouble with Senate confirmation in the past: When Trump first nominated him in 2019, questions about whether he had embellished his resume derailed Ratcliffe’s bid to become the country’s top intelligence official. But he ultimately won Senate confirmation for the job the following year.
Many believe Ratcliffe used the post to carry out Trump’s political agenda, and that could put him on Trump’s radar for an important Justice Department job this time around.
Another name being bounced around Trump circles is Jeffrey Jensen, a former FBI agent and the Trump-appointed former U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Missouri. In 2020, at then Attorney General Bill Barr’s request, Jensen conducted the Justice Department’s review of the criminal case against former Trump National Security Advisor Michael Flynn, ultimately recommending that the prosecution be dropped.
Also frequently mentioned is Will Levi, Barr’s former chief of staff. Barr broke with Trump when Barr criticized his former boss over Trump’s efforts to subvert the 2020 election — but then said he would vote for Trump this year. Levi, a partner at Sidley Austin who worked as a law clerk for Justice Samuel Alito and then as chief counsel for Lee, has managed to stay in the good graces of Trump supporters.
Pro-Trump attack dogs and Trump’s favorite judge
Others under consideration are from slightly further afield. Mike Davis, founder of the Article III Project, an advocacy group aimed at the judiciary, is a Republican lawyer who worked as chief counsel for nominations to Senate Judiciary Chair Chuck Grassley during the Trump administration. As an outside adviser, he led Supreme Court confirmation efforts for Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh. He’s a vocal defender of Trump on social media and conservative news sites, and is said to have the backing of Donald Trump Jr., though how seriously is an open question.
Kash Patel, who is assisting in the process of compiling candidates, is also a potential candidate himself. Patel is former federal public defender and former federal prosecutor in the Justice Department’s national security division who went on to become a top House staffer helping craft Republican responses to the investigations of Trump and Russian election interference. Patel has been a staunch and visible defender of Trump, showing up at his criminal trial in Manhattan and perpetuating conspiracy theories about the 2020 election. During the Trump administration, he worked as chief of staff to the secretary of defense.
And then there’s Cannon, the judge who dismissed the classified documents case and is also overseeing the criminal case against the man who allegedly attempted to assassinate Trump on his Florida golf course. Trump appointed Cannon to the federal bench in Florida shortly before he left office, and he has repeatedly praised her for issuing a multitude of rulings favorable to the former president.
ABC News reported last month that top Trump advisers are considering Cannon for the job of attorney general — a scenario that would surely enrage liberals, who say her handling of the documents case suggests that she is not impartial. But that may be precisely what Trump is looking for.
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