DOJ's New Biglaw 'Conflict' Policy: A Masterclass in Retaliation Theater - Above the Law

DOJ's New Biglaw 'Conflict' Policy: A Masterclass in Retaliation Theater - Above the Law

In an effort to keep piling indignity upon the legacy of the Department of Justice, Deputy Attorney General (and apparently Librarian of Congress somehow?) Todd Blanche just unveiled a policy redefining “conflict of interest” to mean “dared to sue us” — directing that the Justice Department’s “private counsel” program can no longer hire any firm that “contemporaneously are directly adverse to the United States — for example, active litigation ag…

The DOJ's Descent into Authoritarian Theater

In time, the US Department of Justice may come to be viewed as a historical caution—compared to the Inquisition, the Salem witch trials, or Stalin’s show trials. But with more paperwork. More press releases. Historians may record it as the unchecked power of well-dressed authoritarians. Its Orwellian name remembered as ironic. Behind the polished wood and the seal of the eagle, they’ll say, were people who smiled and destroyed lives, methodicall…