Trump orders wide search for political bias in Biden-era actions

Ryan Tarinelli, CQ-Roll Call on Jan 21, 2025

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WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump ordered the attorney general to hunt for instances of campaigns during the Biden administration against perceived political opponents, as the White House on Monday outlined misleading or unproven arguments over government “weaponization.”

The language of the order dovetails with long-standing allegations from Republicans that the Justice Department acted against Trump and other conservatives during the Biden administration, an effort they say was driven by political bias and laid bare by the two federal criminal cases brought against Trump.

With the broad language, the review could look into a range of issues Republican lawmakers highlighted last Congress, including arguments that the FBI used the security clearance adjudication process to “purge its ranks of conservatives and whistleblowers.”

The order refers to a 2021 Justice Department memorandum that sought to address intimidation and violent threats against school administrators and teachers, as well as DOJ charging decisions in connection to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. The order said the Justice Department “has ruthlessly prosecuted” hundreds of people “associated with January 6.”

The executive order was one in a blitz of actions taken by Trump on his first day back in office, including some tied to the criminal justice system such as the death penalty and federal contracting with private prisons.

In the order Monday, Trump directed the attorney general to review the activities of all departments and agencies that exercise civil or criminal enforcement authority, including the Justice Department, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Federal Trade Commission.

Specifically, the executive order tasked the attorney general with identifying “any instances where a department’s or agency’s conduct appears to have been contrary to the purposes and policies of this order,” and directed the preparation of a report with recommendations for “appropriate remedial actions.”

It also called for the director of national intelligence to go forward with a separate review, but for the activities of the intelligence community.

The executive order posited that the Biden administration engaged in a “systematic campaign against its perceived political opponents, weaponizing the legal force of numerous Federal law enforcement agencies and the Intelligence Community against those perceived political opponents.”

Those efforts came in the form of “investigations, prosecutions, civil enforcement actions, and other related actions,” the executive order said.

Former special counsel John L. “Jack” Smith brought criminal charges against Trump in Washington over Trump’s efforts to overturn his loss in the 2020 election. And in Florida, he brought charges against Trump over allegations that the former president kept some of the nation’s most closely guarded secrets unsecured in his Florida club.

Former Attorney General Merrick B. Garland, a Joe Biden pick, appointed Smith to the special counsel position. But there is no public evidence that Biden directed the course of the criminal cases or urged prosecutors to take specific actions.

Republicans also objected to the Florida criminal case against Trump considering Biden’s past problems with classified materials.

A separate special counsel concluded that Biden should not face criminal charges even though investigators found he retained and disclosed classified materials after serving as vice president. That special counsel highlighted how Biden cooperated with the probe and sat for an interview with investigators.

Under the Biden administration, the Justice Department also brought high-profile criminal charges against Democratic lawmakers, including former Sen. Bob Menendez and New York City Mayor Eric Adams.

In the Menendez case, prosecutors under the Biden administration charged the New Jersey Democrat in a wide-ranging corruption case and have recommended the 71-year-old should receive at least 15 years in prison on his convictions.

The Justice Department under the Biden administration also brought criminal cases against the president’s own son, Hunter Biden, who was later pardoned by his father.

The intensity of the Trump-ordered reviews was not immediately clear from the executive order, but it said it set out a “process to ensure accountability for the previous administration’s weaponization of the Federal Government against the American people.”

Death penalty

In another executive order, Trump directed the attorney general to pursue the death penalty for “all crimes of a severity demanding its use.”

It also instructed the attorney general to seek the death penalty for every federal capital crime involving the murder of a law enforcement officer or a capital crime “committed by an alien illegally present in this country.”

The executive order also criticized a move last month from the Biden administration, in which Biden commuted the sentences of 37 people on death row, ordering the reclassification of their sentences from execution to life without the possibility of parole.

“He commuted their sentences even though the laws of our Nation have always protected victims by applying capital punishment to barbaric acts like theirs,” the Trump executive order said.

It ordered the attorney general to look at the confinement conditions of the 37 prisoners and take action to make sure those inmates “are imprisoned in conditions consistent with the monstrosity of their crimes and the threats they pose.”

Private prisons

Trump on Monday also revoked a Biden administration executive order that directed the attorney general to not renew Justice Department contracts with private prisons. The move could be a further boon for the private prison industry.

Last month, GEO Group, a private prison company that contracts with the federal government, announced a $70 million investment to expand detention capacity, transportation and electronic monitoring services to Immigration and Customs Enforcement.