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Project 2025: The Department of Justice

Department of Justice building
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By Kristina Becvar,
Kristina Becvar

In her role as co-publisher of The Fulcrum and Executive Director of the Bridge Alliance Education Fund, she is a driving force behind collaborative efforts to transform our democracy. Recognizing that no single idea or organization can address our complex challenges in isolation, Kristina excels in blending intuitive leadership with data-driven insights. Her extensive background in operations and change management, coupled with her M.S. in data analytics and research methods, equips her with a powerful skill set. Kristina brings a focused approach to the essential work required for a thriving democratic republic.

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David L. Nevins
David L. Nevins
David L. Nevins serves as publisher of The Fulcrum. Additionally, Nevins serves as co-founder and Board Chairman of the Bridge Alliance. Nevins brings business acumen, vision and a tireless this-must-and-can-be-done zeal to the burgeoning movement to bridge divides to transform the political process. As a business leader, Nevins excels at building bridges between people and organizations from the right, left and center for civilized conversation and then action. He co-founded the Bridge Alliance because, as he says, “No matter how well managed and how well funded anyone organization is, significant political reform will not happen without an alliance to further collaborative interactions. Together we can and will raise the collective impact of all.” He is a member of the Aspen Institute Society of Fellows, with a focus on the Aspen Rodel Fellowship in Public Leadership, he established and continues to work with The Nevins Democracy Leaders program at Penn State University. Nevins graduated with honors in economics from Penn State in 1969 and received an M.B.A. in finance from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania in 1971.
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Sep 03, 2024

Becvar is co-publisher of The Fulcrum and executive director of the Bridge Alliance Education Fund. Nevins is co-publisher of The Fulcrum and co-founder and board chairman of the Bridge Alliance Education Fund.

This is part of a series offering a nonpartisan counter to Project 2025, a conservative guideline to reforming government and policymaking during the first 180 days of a second Trump administration. The Fulcrum's cross partisan analysis of Project 2025 relies on unbiased critical thinking, reexamines outdated assumptions, and uses reason, scientific evidence, and data in analyzing and critiquing Project 2025.

The preamble of the Constitution sets up our national aspiration of a government by “We the People” as the basis of a democratic republic predicated on “justice.”

These powerful words have withstood the test of time for over 250 years:

"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

And of course, in the Pledge of Allegiance, we describe a nation that provides “justice for all.”

Justice, and how we define and implement it, is critical to the health of our democracy. Yet, to this day, our nation has many diverging views on what “justice for all” truly means and how this justice should be implemented in the laws of the land. This debate is not only a matter for our legislators but has also been a focal point for philosophers and theologians for centuries.

In the abstract, justice is simply fairness. However, when it comes to specifics, the debate rages across the land on what fairness means with respect to race, sexual orientation, gender and more.

Nowhere is this debate more apparent than in Project 2025, an 887-page manifesto prepared by the conservative think tank Heritage Foundation. The playbook, designed as a guide for the first 180 days of a future Trump administration, highlights the Department of Justice as a critical battleground for establishing a conservative vision of justice.

Chapter 17, titled “The Department of Justice,” argues that reforming the DOJ is crucial to the success of the entire agenda outlined in Project 2025. The authors make a bold claim:

"Not reforming the Department of Justice will also guarantee the failure of that conservative Administration’s agenda in countless other ways.”

Kevin Roberts, president of the Heritage Foundation and a key architect of Project 2025, underscored this priority when he told The New York Times in January, “[W]e just disagree wholly that the Department of Justice is independent of the president or the executive branch.” This perspective is emblematic of a broader strategy to bring the DOJ under close control of the executive, emphasizing that “the DOJ must be refocused on the rule of law and away from its current role as a political weapon.”

Robert’s statement on the DOJ’s use as a “political weapon” by the current Democratic administration stands in direct contrast to a statement he made regarding the department and the 2020 election:

“With respect to the 2020 presidential election, there were no DOJ investigations of the appropriateness or lawfulness of state election guidance. ... The Pennsylvania Secretary of State should have been (and still should be) investigated and prosecuted for potential violations.”

This juxtaposition speaks to the vast reach and changes proposed in Project 2025 for the Justice Department, the essence of justice in America and what “justice for all” might come to mean.

Project 2025’s proposed reforms include replacing career civil servants with a "vast expansion" of political appointees, overturning the current “politicization and weaponization” of the DOJ, and conducting a thorough review of the FBI. The vision is to shift the DOJ towards a more conservative interpretation of law enforcement and justice, which includes prosecuting voter fraud, transferring responsibility to the DOJ's criminal division, and halting investigations of groups engaged in lawful and constitutionally protected activities.

How might some of these reforms be specifically implemented? The answer is exemplified in this one radical sentence: "Promptly and properly eliminate ... all existing consent decrees.”

The Justice Department typically hands down consent decrees to local jurisdictions following investigations into police wrongdoing. As just one example, these decrees have historically compelled jails to improve their conditions or police departments to consider their tactics and report back to the Justice Department. This change would drastically impact the oversight of local law enforcement and the protection of civil rights.

The implications of Project 2025 on justice in America extend beyond the DOJ. The cultural agenda embedded within the project is also significant. As stated on the fourth and fifth pages of the playbook:

“The next conservative President must make the institutions of American civil society hard targets for woke culture warriors. This starts with deleting the terms sexual orientation and gender identity (‘SOGI’), diversity, equity, and inclusion (‘DEI’), gender, gender equality, gender equity, gender awareness, gender-sensitive, abortion, reproductive health, reproductive rights, and any other term used to deprive Americans of their First Amendment rights out of every federal rule, agency regulation, contract, grant, regulation, and piece of legislation that exists.”

Understanding how the proposed changes to the Department of Justice intersect with Project 2025’s cultural agenda is crucial. Together, they have the potential to fundamentally alter and undermine the application of justice in America, challenging the very foundation of our Constitution’s preamble: “to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.”

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      Meanwhile, the Peterson Institute projects a drop in GDP and employment, while the Penn Wharton School’s Budget Model estimates that deporting unauthorized workers over a decade would slash Social Security revenue and inflate deficits by nearly $900 billion. That’s not a typo. It’s a fiscal cliff dressed up as border security.

      And then there’s food. Deporting farmworkers doesn’t just leave fields fallow—it drives up prices. Analysts predict a 10% spike in food costs, compounding inflation and squeezing families already living paycheck to paycheck. In California, where immigrant renters are disproportionately affected, eviction rates are climbing. The Urban Institute warns that deportations are deepening the housing crisis by gutting the construction workforce. So much for protecting American livelihoods.

      But the real cost isn’t measured in dollars. It’s measured in broken families, empty classrooms, and quiet despair. The administration has deployed 10,000 armed service members to the border and ramped up “self-deportation” tactics—policies so harsh they force people to leave voluntarily. The result: Children skipping meals because their parents fear applying for food assistance; Cancer patients deported mid-treatment; and LGBTQ+ youth losing access to mental health care. The Human Rights Watch calls it a “crueler world for immigrants.” That’s putting it mildly.

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      Even the administration’s security claims are shaky. Yes, border crossings are down—by about 60%, thanks to policies like “Remain in Mexico.” But deportation numbers haven’t met the promised scale. The Migration Policy Institute notes that monthly averages hover around 14,500, far below the millions touted. And the root causes of undocumented immigration—like visa overstays, which account for 60% of cases—remain untouched.

      Crime reduction? Also murky. FBI data shows declines in some areas, but experts attribute this more to economic trends than immigration enforcement. In fact, fear in immigrant communities may be making things worse. When people won’t talk to the police, crimes go unreported. That’s not justice. That’s dysfunction.

      Public opinion is catching up. In February, 59% of Americans supported mass deportations. By July, that number had cratered. Gallup reports a 25-point drop in favor of immigration cuts. The Pew Research Center finds that 75% of Democrats—and a growing number of independents—think the policy goes too far. Even Trump-friendly voices like Joe Rogan are balking, calling raids on “construction workers and gardeners” a betrayal of common sense.

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