A blue banner featuring the slogan "Make America Safe Again" was unfurled on Thursday between two columns at the headquarters of the U.S. Department of Justice, part of a recent series of displays tying the president's image to federal institutions.
The banner was placed in a corner of the agency's main building and carries language closely aligned with the president's public messaging. Since the president returned to the White House last year, his administration has taken multiple steps to leave a visible imprint on Washington institutions, officials and critics say.
Those measures have included installing loyalists across cultural and policy organizations, renaming prominent facilities and sidelining officials who were connected to investigations of the president. Critics argue such moves erode the traditional separation between partisan political authority and institutions that are typically treated as independent.
Similar banners bearing the president's image appeared last year on the Department of Labor, the Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Institute of Peace buildings. A presidentially appointed board of directors also voted in December to add the president's name to the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. The president's name was placed last year on the U.S. Institute of Peace building in Washington as well.
The White House referred questions about the latest banner to the Justice Department. The department did not immediately respond to a separate request for comment. In a statement cited by NBC News, a Justice Department spokesperson said the department was "proud" to celebrate its "historic work to make America safe again at President Trump's direction."
The banner's appearance comes in the shadow of high-profile legal confrontations earlier in the decade. In 2023, then-Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith secured indictments accusing the president of illegally retaining classified documents after his first term and of plotting to overturn his defeat in the 2020 presidential election.
The president falsely claimed that he won the 2020 election, and supporters of his made a violent attempt to stop Congress from certifying that election when they stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. After taking office for a second time in January 2025, the president pardoned those who had participated in the January 6 events.
The president has denied wrongdoing in the cases against him, characterizing them as politically motivated. Following his victory in the 2024 election, Smith dropped both cases against him, citing a Justice Department policy that bars prosecuting a sitting president. Smith resigned from the Justice Department days before the president returned to the White House early last year.
Since that transition, the Justice Department under the president's administration has targeted and dismissed many officials who were involved in the probes related to the president.
Observers and participants in Washington continue to debate the implications of these visible displays and personnel changes for the independence and perceived impartiality of federal institutions.