DOJ loosens ethics rules allowing AG Blanche, appointees to campaign

The Justice Department this week issued new guidance that fundamentally reshapes what its most senior officials are permitted to do in the political arena. A memo from Assistant Attorney General Jolene Ann Laurie, circulated this week, relaxes the ethics restrictions that have long governed the attorney general, deputy attorney general, assistant attorneys general, the FBI director, U.S. attorneys, and other Senate-confirmed presidential appointees. Under the new rules, these officials can now speak at campaign rallies, canvass neighborhoods for votes, and even serve as delegates or officers within a national political party—provided they do so in what the memo describes as their "personal capacities."

The shift marks a deliberate reversal of the approach taken during the Biden administration. In 2024, the Justice Department issued a memo that flatly prohibited non-career appointees from attending any partisan political events, even in their personal time. That policy itself had built on restrictions put in place two years earlier. The language was unambiguous: appointees should "avoid making public appearances in any state shortly before a primary or general election in that state, to the greatest extent practicable." The new memo dismantles those guardrails.

Former Attorney General Pam Bondi had already begun loosening these restrictions during her tenure, permitting political appointees to attend rallies and fundraisers. The current guidance goes further. It creates a categorical exemption for presidentially appointed, Senate-confirmed Justice Department employees, explicitly stating that they are not bound by the more stringent ethics rules that continue to apply to other DOJ staff—administrative law judges, for instance, and employees within the Criminal Division. The distinction is significant: it carves out a protected class of senior officials and grants them freedoms denied to their colleagues.

Attorney General Todd Blanche has already tested the boundaries of these norms. In September, he attended a rally for a North Carolina Republican Senate candidate, an appearance that drew immediate criticism for breaching long-standing Justice Department conventions designed to insulate the law from partisan pressure. When questioned about the event, Blanche stated plainly that he was "not in any way violating any rule or law" and characterized his attendance as a personal act. The new memo, in effect, validates that position retroactively and prospectively, providing institutional cover for similar activities going forward.

The practical implications are substantial. A sitting attorney general can now campaign openly for candidates, speak from a stage at political events, and work as an officer or delegate for a political party. The only formal requirement is that these activities occur in an individual capacity rather than an official one—a distinction that, in practice, may be difficult to police or meaningfully enforce. The memo does not prohibit such activities; it permits them, provided the official is not using their government title or government resources to do so.

This represents a significant departure from the institutional norms that have governed the Justice Department for decades. The department's independence from electoral politics has long been considered essential to its credibility and function. When the attorney general is also a visible partisan actor, the appearance of impartiality erodes, and with it, public confidence in prosecutorial decisions and legal judgments. The new guidance does not address these concerns directly. Instead, it assumes that the personal-versus-official distinction is sufficient to preserve the integrity of the institution.

The reversal also reflects a broader philosophical shift about what the Justice Department should be. The Biden-era memos treated political activity as inherently corrosive to institutional independence and therefore something to be minimized across the board. The new approach treats it as a right that senior officials should not be denied, at least not those who have been confirmed by the Senate. Whether that distinction holds up—whether the public, Congress, or the courts will accept that a personal rally appearance by an attorney general does not compromise the department's independence—remains an open question.