Newspaper editorial boards are demanding a Justice Department "independent" from the president — which means independent from the voters who elected him. The Boulder Daily Camera, running a New York Daily News editorial, insists the DOJ must operate free from White House influence and calls Attorney General Todd Blanche a "happy lap dog" for refusing to support the concept of independence from the president.
Here's the actual news: A federal appeals court ruled that Sigal Chattah, Trump's pick for Nevada federal prosecutor, was serving unlawfully. The court said federal prosecutors must be appointed either through Senate confirmation or with consent from the district's federal judges. Trump had tried to install Chattah and others — including John Sarcone in Albany and Alina Habba in New Jersey — through administrative action alone, bypassing both chambers.
The Camera frames this as a corruption crisis, writing that Trump "wrongly sees the DOJ as his personal law firm" and that the department exists to "preserve some semblance of equal justice." Their definition, as they note, "does not mention the president." It doesn't mention voters either. What the editorial board actually wants is a DOJ answerable to the permanent bureaucracy — officials no citizen can vote out of office.
The editorial cites Nixon and Watergate as examples of overreach when the White House-DOJ line blurred. Fair enough. But it conveniently omits the years when an "independent" DOJ targeted political opponents, spied on journalists, and fabricated evidence to secure FISA warrants against American citizens. Independence from elected officials has never meant independence from corruption — it just means no voter can fire you for it.
The Camera also accuses Trump of directing the DOJ to "charge opponents like New York Attorney General Tish James and former FBI Director Jim Comey" and going after "regular people like Kilmar Abrego García." That's the editorial's framing. What the editorial doesn't mention is that the same institutional press had no objection when the DOJ under Biden prosecuted Trump himself on charges widely viewed as politically motivated. The independence standard only runs one direction.
Meanwhile, actual financial entanglements in this administration draw less editorial fire. Arkansas Online reports that Trump invested between $15,001 and $50,000 in Elon Musk's SpaceX on June 23, part of more than 1,000 stock trades that month. SpaceX had just completed the largest U.S. IPO ever on June 12, valued at $1.77 trillion. The White House says third-party financial institutions independently manage the president's portfolio and replicate "recognized indexes, such as the Schwab 1000." SBA chief Kelly Loeffler, a Trump cabinet member, earned millions from the same SpaceX IPO after investing in xAI before and after her nomination. Trump just directed his team to drastically increase U.S. commercial space launches — SpaceX's core business.
The editorial boards want you worried about who the DOJ answers to. They don't want you asking who profits from the decisions coming out of this administration — or any administration. The question isn't whether the DOJ should be independent from the president. It's who, exactly, the press thinks it should be accountable to instead. Because "independence" in Washington usually means answerable to the permanent class that never faces an election.
