Joe Biden Won't Force His Justice Department To Investigate Donald Trump

The Biden DOJ will not be anything like the Trump DOJ -- and that's a good thing.

(Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

I will not do what this president does and use the Justice Department as my vehicle to insist that something happen. There are a number of investigations that I’ve read about that are at a state level. There’s nothing at all I can or cannot do about that.

— President-elect Joe Biden, in his first televised interview since the election, responding to a question from NBC’s Lester Holt as to whether he’d support using the Department of Justice to investigate Donald Trump after he leaves office. Before the election, Biden said he’d like to restore the DOJ’s independence. “What the Biden Justice Department will do is let the Justice Department be the Department of Justice,” he noted. “Let them make the judgments of who should be prosecuted.”


Staci ZaretskyStaci Zaretsky is a senior editor at Above the Law, where she’s worked since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on Twitter or connect with her on LinkedIn.

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