The Heritage Foundation Presidential Transition Project 2025

HERITAGE FOUNDATION 

PRESIDENTIAL TRANSITION PROJECT 2025

Note: This is a commentary I was asked to write by a pro-democracy faction within the group of my high school classmates with whom I keep in touch. 

By Thomas Coffin

To those who read this commentary, allow me to briefly describe my background and the purpose of my offering, which is designed to inform those interested in the fate of our democratic system of government of the impacts that the Heritage Foundation’s “Presidential Transition Project 2025” will have if it is successfully implemented should Donald Trump be voted into a second term as President. Project 2025 is essentially a blueprint for a complete makeover of our democracy, from top to bottom, to fulfill an ultra-right wish list that mirrors autocratic governance models, not the Constitutional model that has served the American people for over 200 years.

I have volunteered to address that portion of Project 2025 which seeks to overhaul the United States Department of Justice (DOJ). My background for this task includes a career of 51 years in our nation’s justice system—21 years as an Assistant United States Attorney in which, in part, I served as the Chief of the Criminal Division in the Southern District of California, which extends to the Mexican border, and 10 years as an AUSA in the District of Oregon. In that capacity, I prosecuted and tried to juries literally hundreds of serious felony cases. From that role, I was appointed to the federal bench as a U.S. Magistrate Judge, whose duties included presiding over certain aspects of criminal cases as well as civil litigation. I served on the bench for approximately 30 years before retiring.

These credentials I bring to the analysis of the Project 2025 plan to dissolve and reconstruct the Department of Justice I served so proudly.  Before I dive into that plan, there is a symbol I wish to bring to the attention of the readers—Lady Justice. She is blindfolded to symbolize that justice is unbiased and is not influenced by appearance or status. She holds scales to represent the impartiality of court decisions and a sword to symbolize the power of justice. That symbol should be kept in mind as we travel through the Project 2025 scheme under a Trump administration.

This section of Project 2025 is authored by Gene Hamilton, an attorney who serves as the VP of First Legal, a conservative action group founded by Donald Trump and who served in the US DOJ during the first term of Trump’s presidency.  What is important to know about 

Mr. Hamilton is that he played a key role in the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” family separation policy, which ended the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). 

Pursuant to that family separation policy, children were separated from their parents and many were not reunited with their families as there were, in part, no adequate plans to keep track of them or to ever return them to their parents.  Many were deported. Hundreds are still unaccounted for.  The United Nations defines this policy as a form of genocide.  The separation policy, also described as cultural genocide, raises red flags on the resume of someone purportedly engaged in improving the role of the DOJ in upholding and strengthening its mission to serve the Rule of Law which is paramount to our Constitutional democracy and the rights of people under our legal system.

For those who may question the status of families entering our side of the border illegally, if they are arrested and detained by our border patrol or immigration officers, they still have certain basic rights which must not be violated under our legal system. For example, when I was a prosecutor in the border area, I tried a case where a border officer raped and murdered a woman who was apprehended after she illegally crossed into our side of the border.  Notwithstanding her illegal status, she had the right to life itself and the right not to be assaulted. Similarly, parents and their children have the rights to not have their family separated and their children dispersed to fend for themselves or transported and even deported to unknown destinations (the DOJ under Trump did not keep records about where minor children were relocated.)

Another point to keep in mind as the reader navigates Project 2025’s policy recommendations for the DOJ is found in two seismic changes it touts which in fact will pragmatically end the very rule of law The Heritage Foundation is paying lip service to.

The first change is found in Hamilton’s recommendation that, upon the very day of his inauguration, Trump (assuming he wins) should terminate all attorneys serving in the DOJ and then decide who, if any, he should reappoint. Of course, reappointment would undoubtedly hinge on pledging loyalty to Trump, rather than the usual oath to defend the Constitution.

Coupled with that is the requirement that DOJ attorneys make prosecution and other legal decisions consistent with the agenda of the new Trump administration. 

In essence, this would eviscerate the rule of law, substituting the rule of autocracy, where the will of the President would control the administration of Justice. Such a policy is Stalinist and frightening in the hands of someone who has already claimed he would have immunity even for murdering his political opponents as President and is currently himself facing no less than 91 indictments charging criminal offenses. 

How does that affect you personally, the average citizen who would live under the new model of the Department of Justice? Recall the symbol of Justice. She will be shattered. You will no longer live under that system. The blinders will be gone, the scales weighted. Status, wealth, power, race, and influence will all be in play. The sword will not be in the hand of Justice, but in the hand of the individual who now wields it as he pleases.

I have mentioned the family separation policy. Can you even imagine that befalling your family? Or having your political beliefs being considered by prosecutors whose very jobs are dependent on pleasing the agenda of the newly christened administer of Justice, who orders your arrest and trial? Perhaps you criticize the administration; are you aware that Viktor Orban, the dictator of Hungary, has made it a crime to criticize his administration under his new “sovereignty law”? Are you also aware that Trump has approvingly cited Orban, as well Putin, for condemning American democracy? This is the context of Project 2025’s recommendations for its deconstruction and reconstruction of the DOJ. 

As remarkable and troubling are these proposals, Project 2025 becomes even more extreme by recommending legal action against local state officials such as District Attorneys who do not adequately prosecute criminal offenses (in the view of the administration) in their jurisdictions. This is also coupled with a recommended policy of enforcing the death penalty. Although it’s not clear where the sweep of the Administration’s policies over state and local prosecutions and punishment begins or ends, what the legal actions would be, or the basis of federal jurisdiction over state and local prosecution decisions within their statutory framework and policies, such are among the goals of the Project. These proposals amount to a shattering of our national system of justice. Where it would end is anyone’s guess. 

Moving on, I wish to address Hamilton’s additional criticism of the FBI for arresting several demonstrators for what he calls engaging in protected speech at clinics providing services for women seeking medical care that may involve abortions. This is part of his objective and argument for placing the FBI directly under the new administration. In researching that claim, it appears that the FBI arrests were not for speech, but for obstructing access to clinics which culminated in charges being filed. After a jury trial, the demonstrators were convicted and are now awaiting sentencing. 

Thus, the arrests were not for protected speech, but for illegal actions which the demonstrators persisted in, even after being warned that the obstructive conduct violated the law.  Other demonstrators who left when warned about the legal consequences were not arrested. Those who persisted received due process and were convicted by their peers after a trial.  They also have the right to appeal the convictions to the appellate courts. 

Hamilton also lambasts the FACE legislation (The Free Access To Clinics Act) passed by Congress which the Project recommends that DOJ not enforce under the new administration. Hamilton levels criticism of FBI agents for being armed when arresting one of the clinic demonstrators indicted under FACE at his home. No shots were fired and the arrest was not at all abnormal.

Agents also have families, and the ubiquitous presence of firearms in our culture is well known to law enforcement. (As an aside, statistics reveal that more AR-15s have been sold to the public than there are people in our nation.)

In short, Project 2025 recommends that the DOJ ignore Congress and ignore obstructive actions at clinics serving women.  The impacts on women could not be more clear, nor the message to all citizens that the Trump administration will even ignore legislation which is not aligned with its agenda.

I do not wish to belabor the DOJ criticisms voiced by Hamilton. The reality is that the Department is staffed and overseen by dedicated attorneys committed to ethical and professional standards binding on their conduct, as are their superiors. Similarly, investigators within the Department’s purview are trained and sworn to exercise their authority in the same manner pursuant to the guidance of our Constitution. I have spent 51 years of my career in our country’s justice system and can vouch for the integrity and manner in which that solemn duty has been exercised. We are a nation of law, and we adhere to the rule of law.

Turning the keys over to the whims of an administration that rejects Constitutional and DOJ guidelines as this Project recommends would be a death sentence to the rule of law. Project 25 does not serve the rule of law. To the contrary, it would obliterate it.

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Thomas Coffin was the keynote speaker at the Blackberry Pie Society’s Political Party in February, 2020 and at Politics and Pie in October, 2022.  He is a retired federal magistrate judge for the U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon and a former professor at the UO Law School. Thomas retired in 2016 after 24 years on the bench, prior to which he had a career as a federal prosecutor spanning 21 years. He is married with 7 children.  The Blackberry Pie Society is pleased to include a collection of his essays on our website.  We will post them as they become available.

Posted 3.14.2024