'Morale has been gutted': can Biden restore the DoJ's battered reputation?

Biden may find his best intentions tested early on as the Trump administration has been planting legal landmines in his path

When Bill Barr was invited to speak at the conservative-leaning Hillsdale College, Michigan, in September, he leapt at the chance to respond to criticism that he had politicized the justice department that he led in order to benefit his political master, Donald Trump.

The then US attorney general, who stepped down from the post last month , began his speech by arguing that there had to be political input at the top of the Department of Justice (DoJ) in order for it to be publicly accountable. Then he turned to his own staff and, in response to recent complaints that he had improperly overruled the decisions of career prosecutors, gave them a good tongue-lashing.