The United States Department of Justice (DOJ) is an executive department of the United States federal government that oversees the domestic enforcement of federal laws and the administration of justice. It is equivalent to the justice or interior ministries of other countries. The department is headed by the United States attorney general, who reports directly to the president of the United States and is a member of the president's Cabinet. Todd Blanche currently serves as the attorney general.
The Justice Department contains most of the United States' federal law enforcement agencies, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the U.S. Marshals Service, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the Drug Enforcement Administration, and the Federal Bureau of Prisons. The department also has eight divisions of lawyers who represent the federal government in litigation: the Criminal, Civil, Antitrust, Tax, Civil Rights, Environment and Natural Resources, National Security, and Justice Management divisions. The DOJ includes the United States attorneys' offices for each of the 94 United States federal judicial districts.
The United States Congress created the Justice Department in 1870, during the presidency of Ulysses S. Grant. Its functions originally date to 1789, when Congress created the office of the Attorney General. The department is headquartered in Washington, D.C. at the Robert F. Kennedy Department of Justice Building.
History The office of the attorney general was established by the Judiciary Act of 1789. Until 1853, the salary of the attorney general was set by statute at less than the amount paid to other Cabinet members. Early attorneys general supplemented their salaries by running private law practices, often arguing cases before the courts as attorneys for paying litigants. The lightness of the office is exemplified by Edward Bates (1793–1869), attorney general under President Abraham Lincoln (1861–1864). Bates had only a small operation, with a staff of just six. Their main function was to generate legal opinions at the request of Lincoln and cabinet members and to handle occasional cases before the Supreme Court. However, Lincoln's cabinet was full of experienced lawyers who seldom felt the need to ask for his opinions. In addition, Bates had no authority over U.S. Attorneys across the country. The federal court system was handled by the Department of the Interior, and the Department of the Treasury handled claims. Most of the opinions turned out by Bates's office were of minor importance. Lincoln gave him no special assignments and did not seek his advice on Supreme Court appointments. Bates did have an opportunity to comment on general policy as a cabinet member with a strong political base, but he seldom spoke up.John P. Frank, "Edward Bates, Lincoln's Attorney General", American Journal of Legal History 10#1 (1966) pp 34–50.
Following unsuccessful efforts in 1830 and 1846 to make attorney general a full-time job, in 1867, the United States House Committee on the Judiciary, led by Congressman William Lawrence, conducted an inquiry into the creation of a "law department" headed by the attorney general and also composed of the various department solicitors and United States attorneys. On February 19, 1868, Lawrence introduced a bill in Congress to create the Department of Justice. President Ulysses S. Grant signed the bill into law on June 22, 1870.
The "Act to Establish the Department of Justice" drastically increased the attorney general's responsibilities to include the supervision of all United States attorneys, formerly under the Department of the Interior, the prosecution of all federal crimes, and the representation of the United States in all court actions, barring the use of private attorneys by the federal government. The law also created the office of Solicitor General to supervise and conduct government litigation in the Supreme Court of the United States.
The organization of the department was a part of the general effort to control patronage, retrenchment in the workforce, and to improve the status of lawyers.Shugerman, Jed Handelsman. “The Creation of the Department of Justice: Professionalization Without Civil Rights or Civil Service.” Stanford Law Review, vol. 66, no. 1, 2014, pp. 121–72. JSTOR website Retrieved 24 Feb. 2025.
Grant appointed Amos T. Akerman as attorney general and Benjamin H. Bristow as America's first solicitor general the same week that Congress created the Department of Justice. The Department's immediate function was to preserve civil rights. It set about fighting against domestic terrorist groups who had been using both violence and litigation to oppose the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the Constitution.
Both Akerman and Bristow used the Department of Justice to vigorously prosecute Ku Klux Klan members in the early 1870s. In the first few years of Grant's first term in office, there were 1000 indictments against Klan members, with over 550 convictions from the Department of Justice. By 1871, there were 3000 indictments and 600 convictions, with most only serving brief sentences, while the ringleaders were imprisoned for up to five years in the federal penitentiary in Albany, New York. The result was a dramatic decrease in violence in the South. Akerman gave credit to Grant and told a friend that no one was "better" or "stronger" than Grant when it came to prosecuting terrorists.Smith 2001, pp. 542–547. George H. Williams, who succeeded Akerman in December 1871, continued to prosecute the Klan throughout 1872 until the spring of 1873, during Grant's second term in office. Williams then placed a moratorium on Klan prosecutions partially because the Justice Department, inundated by cases involving the Klan, did not have the manpower to continue prosecutions.Williams (1996), The Great South Carolina Ku Klux Klan Trials, 1871–1872, p. 123
With the passage of the Interstate Commerce Act in 1887, the federal government took on some law enforcement responsibilities, and the Department of Justice was tasked with performing these.
In 1884, control of federal prisons was transferred to the new department, from the Department of the Interior. New facilities were built, including the penitentiary at Leavenworth in 1895, and a facility for women located in West Virginia, at Alderson was established in 1924.
In 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued an executive order which gave the Department of Justice responsibility for the "functions of prosecuting in the courts of the United States claims and demands by, and offsenses [sic] against, the Government of the United States, and of defending claims and demands against the Government, and of supervising the work of United States attorneys, marshals, and clerks in connection therewith, now exercised by any agency or officer..."Executive Order 6166, Sec. 5 (June 12, 1933), at .
Following the Watergate scandal, reforms were enacted to enhance the independence of the Justice Department including the Ethics in Government Act, and for the next 50 years, subsequent Attorneys General reinforced the independence of the Department of Justice from the president.
During the second Trump presidency, the Department's "independence and impartiality has shattered". The department has been used to target Trump's political opponents. Trump reportedly demanded $230 million in compensation from the DOJ and the department ended an investigation into Tom Homan receiving $50,000 which have raised ethical concerns. As part of Republican Party efforts to disrupt voting after the 2024 United States presidential election, the DOJ sought voter roll data from over 30 states and initiated the 2025 Texas redistricting.
Headquarters
The U.S. Department of Justice building was completed in 1935 from a design by Milton Bennett Medary. Upon Medary's death in 1929, the other partners of his Philadelphia firm Zantzinger, Borie and Medary took over the project. On a lot bordered by Constitution and Pennsylvania Avenues and Ninth and Tenth Streets, Northwest, it holds over of space.
Various efforts, none entirely successful, have been made to determine the original intended meaning of the Latin motto appearing on the Department of Justice seal, Qui Pro Domina Justitia Sequitur. It is not even known exactly when the original version of the DOJ seal itself was adopted, or when the motto first appeared on the seal. The most authoritative opinion of the DOJ suggests that the motto refers to the Attorney General (and thus, by extension, to the Department of Justice) "who prosecutes on behalf of justice (or the Lady Justice)".
The motto's conception of the prosecutor (or government attorney) as being the servant of justice itself finds concrete expression in a similarly-ordered English-language inscription ("THE UNITED STATES WINS ITS POINT WHENEVER JUSTICE IS DONE ITS CITIZENS IN THE COURTS") in the above-door paneling in the ceremonial rotunda anteroom just outside the Attorney General's office in the Department of Justice Main Building in Washington, D.C. The building was renamed in honor of former Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy in 2001. It is sometimes referred to as "Main Justice".
Organization
Leadership offices Office of the Attorney General Office of the Deputy Attorney General Office of the Associate Attorney General Office of the United States Principal Deputy Associate Attorney General Office of the Solicitor General of the United States
Divisions Division Year established(as formal division) Antitrust Division 1919History of the Antitrust Division , United States Department of Justice. Civil Division 1933 Civil Rights Division 1957Kevin Alonso & R. Bruce Anderson, "Civil Rights Legislation and Policy" in Postwar America: An Encyclopedia of Social, Political, Cultural, and Economic History (2006, ed. James Ciment), p. 233. Criminal Division 1919Organization, Mission and Functions Manual: Criminal Division , United States Department of Justice. Environment and Natural Resources Division (ENRD) 1909 Justice Management Division (JMD) 1945 National Security Division (NSD) 2006National Security Cultures: Patterns of Global Governance (Routledge, 2010; eds. Emil J. Kirchner & James Sperling), p. 195. Tax Division 1933Nancy Staudt, The Judicial Power of the Purse: How Courts Fund National Defense in Times of Crisis (University of Chicago Press, 2011), p. 34.
The Justice Department also had a War Division during World War II. It was created in 1942 and disestablished in 1945.Civilian Agency Records: Department of Justice Records , National Archived and Records Administration.
Law enforcement agencies Several federal law enforcement agencies are administered by the Department of Justice: United States Marshals Service (USMS) – The office of U.S. Marshal was established by the Judiciary Act of 1789. The U.S. Marshals Service was established as an agency in 1969, and it was elevated to full bureau status under the Justice Department in 1974.Larry K. Gaines & Victor E. Kappeler, Policing in America (8th ed. 2015), pp. 38–39.United States Marshals Service Then ... and Now (Office of the Director, United States Marshals Service, U.S. Department of Justice, 1978). Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) – On July 26, 1908, a small investigative force was created within the Justice Department under Attorney General Charles Bonaparte. The following year, this force was officially named the Bureau of Investigation by Attorney General George W. Wickersham. In 1935, the bureau adopted its current name.The FBI: A Comprehensive Reference Guide (Oryz Press, 1999, ed. Athan G. Theoharis), p. 102.