I'm Ayesha Roscoe, and this is The Sunday Story, where we go deep on one big topic.
A few months ago,
Donald Trump made the short trip down Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House to the Justice Department.
It's rare for a president to speak at the Justice Department.
In fact, Trump's visit was only the fifth by a president of this century.
Historically, presidents have kept their distance.
That's been the norm for decades, respected by Republicans and Democrats alike,
that the department should be free from political interference.
President Trump has made clear he has a very different idea about that relationship.
And in his speech that day, he lashed out at those who have worked in the building in recent years.
Our predecessors turned this Department of Justice into the Department of Injustice.
But I stand before you today to declare that those days are over and they are never going to come back.
As for Attorney General Pam Bondi, she said this when introducing the president that same morning.
We all work for the greatest president in the history of our country.
We are so proud to work at the directive of Donald Trump.
This is just one moment of several in the past six months that signaled what many legal observers see as a major shift in the relationship between the White House and the Justice Department under this administration.
Reporter Ryan Lucas has been following the turbulence and the changes underway at the agency,
and we'll talk about what he's been seeing right after the break.
Grab a snack make the bed check your mail or catch up on the latest news with the NPR News now podcast Listen in the time it takes you to do any of those other activities or
while doing them We bring you the stories you need to know in just five minutes every hour of every day Listen now to the NPR News now podcast At Planet Money,