Obama warns against politicized Justice Department and expanding presidential power

Barack Obama used a taped interview on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert to draw a hard line around presidential power, warning that the White House should not be able to direct the attorney general to prosecute whomever the president wants.

Obama said the attorney general is the “people’s lawyer,” not the president’s “consigliere,” and argued that the country can endure “bad policy” and even “funky elections” more easily than it can withstand the politicization of the criminal justice system. He also said presidents should not reward friends through pardons or use presidential office for “side hustles” involving companies and foreign entities.

The comments landed as the Justice Department faces fresh scrutiny over a widening investigation into Obama-era intelligence officials. Federal prosecutors in Miami subpoenaed former FBI Director James Comey on March 19, 2026, as part of an inquiry that has issued more than 130 subpoenas since it began last year. In November 2025, a grand jury subpoenaed former CIA Director John Brennan, former FBI counterintelligence official Peter Strzok and former FBI attorney Lisa Page. The investigation has also expanded its date range from 2016 through the present day.

The probe followed a criminal referral from Tulsi Gabbard, who alleged without evidence a “treasonous conspiracy” by former Obama administration intelligence officials. That backdrop gives Obama’s warning added weight: his criticism was not abstract, but aimed at a political climate in which law enforcement power has become a central weapon in partisan combat.

Obama has been sounding the same alarm in public for months. In an April 4, 2025 speech at Hamilton College in Clinton, New York, he criticized the second Trump administration’s tariffs, its threats against universities and law firms, and what he called the upending of the international order. He said he was especially troubled by a White House threatening law firms for representing clients it disliked, calling that contrary to the basic compact Americans share.

The White House has defended its actions toward universities as accountability measures tied to antisemitism and has said its moves against law firms are connected to national security and stopping work it considers harmful. Obama’s remarks, along with separate criticisms from former Vice President Kamala Harris in April 2025, underscore the deepening clash between the former president and a White House he says is testing the limits of democratic restraint.