 Seal of the U.S. Department of Justice | |
 Flag of the U.S. Department of Justice | |
 | |
_(53840386529).jpg) TheRobert F. Kennedy Building is the headquarters of the U.S. Department of Justice. (2024) | |
| Agency overview | |
|---|---|
| Formed | July 1, 1870; 155 years ago (1870-07-01) |
| Type | Executive department |
| Jurisdiction | U.S. federal government |
| Headquarters | Robert F. Kennedy Department of Justice Building 950Pennsylvania AvenueNW Washington, D.C., United States 38°53′36″N77°1′30″W / 38.89333°N 77.02500°W /38.89333; -77.02500 |
| Motto | "Qui Pro Domina Justitia Sequitur" (Latin: "Who prosecutes on behalf of justice (or theLady Justice)")[1][2] |
| Employees | 113,114 (2019)[3] |
| Annual budget | $37.52 billion (FY 2024) |
| Agency executives | |
| Website | justice.gov |
TheUnited States Department of Justice (DOJ) is afederal executive department of theU.S. government that oversees the domestic enforcement offederal laws and theadministration of justice. It is equivalent to thejustice orinterior ministries of other countries. The department is headed by theU.S. attorney general, who reports directly to thepresident of the United States and is a member of the president'sCabinet.Pam Bondi has served as U.S. attorney general since February 4, 2025.[4]
The Justice Department contains most of the United States'federal law enforcement agencies, including theFederal Bureau of Investigation, theU.S. Marshals Service, theBureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, theDrug Enforcement Administration, and theFederal Bureau of Prisons. The department also has eight divisions of lawyers who represent the federal government in litigation: theCriminal,Civil,Antitrust,Tax,Civil Rights,Environment and Natural Resources,National Security, andJustice Management Divisions. The DOJ includes theU.S. Attorneys' offices for each of the 94U.S. federal judicial districts.
TheU.S. Congress created the Justice Department in 1870, during theUlysses S. Grant administration. Its functions originally date to 1789, when Congress created the office of the Attorney General.
The office of theattorney general was established by theJudiciary Act of 1789 as a part-time job for one person, but grew with thebureaucracy. At one time, the attorney general gave legal advice to theU.S. Congress, as well as thepresident; however, in 1819, the attorney general began advising Congress alone to ensure a manageable workload.[5] 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.[2] The lightness of the office is exemplified byEdward 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 theDepartment of the Interior, and theDepartment 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.[6]
Following unsuccessful efforts in 1830 and 1846 to make attorney general a full-time job,[2] in 1867, theU.S. House Committee on the Judiciary, led by CongressmanWilliam Lawrence, conducted an inquiry into the creation of a "law department" headed by the attorney general and also composed of the various department solicitors andUnited States attorneys. On February 19, 1868, Lawrence introduced a bill in Congress to create the Department of Justice. PresidentUlysses S. Grant signed the bill into law on June 22, 1870.[7]
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.[8] The law also created the office ofSolicitor General to supervise and conduct government litigation in theSupreme Court of the United States.[9]
The organization of the department was a part of the general effort to controlpatronage,retrenchment in the workforce, and to improve the status of lawyers.[10]
Grant appointedAmos T. Akerman as attorney general andBenjamin 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 the13th,14th, and15th Amendments to the Constitution.[11]
Both Akerman and Bristow used the Department of Justice to vigorously prosecuteKu 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 inAlbany, 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.[12]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 amoratorium on Klan prosecutions partially because the Justice Department, inundated by cases involving the Klan, did not have the manpower to continue prosecutions.[13]
With the passage of theInterstate Commerce Act in 1887, thefederal government took on some law enforcement responsibilities, and the Department of Justice was tasked with performing these.[14]
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 atLeavenworth in 1895, and a facility for women located inWest Virginia, atAlderson was established in 1924.[15]
In 1933, PresidentFranklin 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..."[16]
The U.S. Department of Justice building was completed in 1935 from a design byMilton Bennett Medary. Upon Medary's death in 1929, the other partners of his Philadelphia firmZantzinger, 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 1,000,000 square feet (93,000 m2) of space.
Various efforts, none entirely successful, have been made to determine the original intended meaning of theLatin 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)".[2]
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.[2] The building was renamed in honor of former Attorney GeneralRobert F. Kennedy in 2001. It is sometimes referred to as "Main Justice".[17]
| Division | Year established (as formal division) |
|---|---|
| Antitrust Division | 1919[18] |
| Civil Division[a] | 1933[19] |
| Civil Rights Division | 1957[21] |
| Criminal Division | 1919[22] |
| Environment and Natural Resources Division (ENRD)[b] | 1909[23] |
| Justice Management Division (JMD)[c] | 1945[24] |
| National Security Division (NSD) | 2006[25] |
| Tax Division | 1933[26] |
The Justice Department also had a War Division duringWorld War II. It was created in 1942 and disestablished in 1945.[27]
Severalfederal law enforcement agencies are administered by the Department of Justice:
In March 2003, theUnited States Immigration and Naturalization Service was abolished and its functions transferred to theUnited States Department of Homeland Security. TheExecutive Office for Immigration Review and theBoard of Immigration Appeals, which review decisions made by government officials under Immigration and Nationality law, remain under jurisdiction of the Department of Justice. Similarly the Office of Domestic Preparedness left the Justice Department for the Department of Homeland Security, but only for executive purposes. The Office of Domestic Preparedness is still centralized within the Department of Justice, since its personnel are still officially employed within the Department of Justice.
In 2003, the Department of Justice created LifeAndLiberty.gov, a website that supported theUSA PATRIOT Act. It was criticized by government watchdog groups for its alleged violation of U.S. Code Title 18 Section 1913, which forbids money appropriated by Congress to be used to lobby in favor of any law, actual or proposed.[37] The website has since been taken offline.
On October 5, 2021, U.S. Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco has announced the formation of a "Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team" during the Aspen Cyber Summit.[38]
| Program | FY 2022 (millions) | FY 2023 (millions) | FY 2024 proposed (millions) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Law Enforcement | $19,286 | $20,543 | $21,292 |
| Litigation | 1,552 | 1,752 | 2,091 |
| Admin/Technology/Other | 880 | 652 | 2,009 |
| Prisons and Detention | 10,223 | 10,802 | 9,988 |
| State and Local Grants | $3,630 | $4,195 | $4,912 |
| ATR and USTP Fees | (551) | (459) | (556) |
| Total, Discretionary BA with Fees | $35,020 | $37,485 | $39,736 |
Links to related articles | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
