Maybe, maybe not — but these days, it certainly seems worth a try. And to the extent that the GOP primary comes down to a two-person choice, the governor who actually booted politicized prosecutors from office might have a better argument than the president who didn’t take any real action in a full four-year term.

Assuming, of course, that this can be done at all.

Real Clear Politics’ Philip Wegmann offers an exclusive look at Ron DeSantis’ plan to deconstruct the Department of Justice and rebuild it into an organization devoid of partisan politics. According to Wegmann, the Florida governor has spent months researching and planning this project, which might go so far as to eliminate the FBI and maybe even relocate the DoJ outside of the Beltway. The idea is to return to the vision of law enforcement that the founders had, Wegmann reports, which is that it should be as subsidiary as possible (via Gary Gross, who has more thoughts):

“We’re not going to let all this power accumulate in Washington, we’re going to break up these agencies,” DeSantis said during a private strategy session over the weekend, excerpts of which were obtained exclusively by RCP. He vowed in that call to order “some of the problematic components of the DOJ” be uprooted, reorganized, and then promptly “shipped to other parts of the country.”

This fits with one of the central themes of the DeSantis campaign, namely that he’d be “an energetic executive,” a president with the focus and attention to detail necessary to make the most of his Article II powers. On the stump, the governor regularly wins applause from primary voters for promising not just to wage war on the so-called deep state, but to end it.

The goal, according to senior outside advisors, ought to be returning the DOJ and FBI to a more limited “pre-9/11” mission.

The first step might not even be relocation. A better plan would be to eliminate the FBI’s brief for counterintelligence, which it continually mixes into its law-enforcement functions in ways that keep backfiring. Operation Crossfire Hurricane is only the latest example; this problem goes back to the days of J. Edgar Hoover, and “reforms” only appear to temporarily alleviate the problem. Domestic counterintelligence should be handled by a separate agency, one that can partner with the FBI when needed but with better protections for civil liberties in the US. We don’t need to build a “Gorelick wall,” but we do need law enforcement to be separate from intel work. Otherwise, we end up with “disinformation” projects and quashing of speech and dissent.

As for the overall scheme of decentralization, the question would be whether Congress would approve it. Or is it? His advisers think that may not be an issue:

A key feature of the emerging plan: Move fast. Don’t wait on Congress.

[Heritage Foundation’s Steven] Bradbury has placed particular emphasis on that point during discussions with the candidate. An alum of both the Bush and Trump administrations, the former assistant attorney general told DeSantis that not only could he “relocate the FBI headquarters” without legislation from Congress, but he could also eliminate and then consolidate the bureau’s general counsel, public affairs, and government relations offices with existing divisions in the DOJ.

Is that true? Theoretically … maybe. Practically speaking, almost certainly not. Perhaps everyone has forgotten the massive “scandal” of George W. Bush’s second term, in which he asked for the resignations of most US Attorneys after the midterm elections went sour. US Attorneys, mind you, are political appointees that serve at the pleasure of the president, and replacing them is usually not an issue. However, that’s usually only at the start of a term, not in the middle.

When Bush tried to do that in December 2006, the media and Democrats went nuts, and turned it into a four-alarm meltdown. They claimed that Bush was trying to obstruct investigations into fellow Republicans. They also argued, with more accuracy, that Bush was attempting to appoint “temporary” prosecutors to get around a new Democrat-controlled Senate. A recent change in the law (the PATRIOT Act) allowed for indefinitely long “temporary” appointments for US Attorneys without Senate confirmation, and that was a loophole that may have been too seductive to ignore.

The upshot? A dozen or so Bush administration officials resigned, including Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, his depute Paul McNulty, Harriet Miers, Karl Rove, and others. Whatever reform was intended (if any) was lost in the massive chaos and political beating that Bush and his team took for nearly two years over it. And all of this was only over an effort to replace political appointees, not to impose a massive structural reform of the DoJ on the scale DeSantis and his team envision.

The lesson here is clear: It’s better to work with Congress than to work around it. Besides, if the intent in this plan is to adhere more closely to the vision of the founders, a brute-force exercise in executive power doesn’t seem like an authentic approach to it.

The good news on this front is that any election that put DeSantis in the Oval Office would likely produce big down-ballot gains for the GOP, especially if DeSantis faced off against Joe Biden in the victory. Right now, Democrats’ only turnout strategy is to get Donald Trump nominated for a rematch. Without Trump, Democrats lose at least a third of their voter enthusiasm, and maybe more than that. If DeSantis wins the office, he should have enough power in Congress to get these reforms passed into statute and budgetary outlays, which would make the reform much more long-lasting and reliable.

Let’s not be too nit-picky on this, either. While Wegmann’s report reveals more of an aspirational vision than an actual war plan and may need some strategic development, it is at least a rational and reasonably specific aspirational vision. It needs more specificity and perhaps a more realistic approach, but it is an actual policy for DeSantis to promote. That distinguishes it from the rest of the field, at least at the moment, who are more engaged in talking-point recitations about politicization rather than substantive proposals to eliminate it.

And DeSantis has a track record on this in Florida with his removal of two politicized prosecutors and enforcement of the rule of law, a track record that none of his rivals have — including the one that had four years to start such reforms and failed to do so. If nothing else, this should raise the 2024 debate bar from venting on this topic to actual policy.