By Dana DiFilippo
Reprinted with permission
New Jersey Monitor
In the nearly four years since Matt Platkin became New Jersey’s 62nd attorney general, his critics have multiplied.
Republicans tried to impeach him. Democrats accused him of weaponizing his office to attack their allies. State police unions sued him. Someone even sent voters mailers attacking him, a move usually reserved for political candidates in bare-knuckle election contests. (Platkin ran for public office just once — when he became the first sixth grader at his middle school elected to student government.)
Platkin regards it all as a measure of his success.
“I haven’t shied away from tough decisions and tough cases,” he said. “If you do this job for four years and you haven’t pissed anybody off, then you really haven’t done the job the right way.”
With just weeks left before Gov.-elect Mikie Sherrill takes office and installs a new attorney general, Platkin shared his proudest moments, biggest frustrations, future plans, and more in a wide-ranging interview with the New Jersey Monitor.
Gov. Phil Murphy named Platkin, a Democrat and his former chief counsel, attorney general in February 2022.
As head of the state Department of Law and Public Safety, Platkin leads an office of about 8,000 people and oversees police, criminal and civil investigations and prosecutions statewide, and more.
His corruption crackdowns typically grab the most attention, both because he’s targeted some of the state’s most powerful people, such as South Jersey Democratic power broker George Norcross, and because those cases don’t always hold up in court. State judges tossed Platkin’s criminal indictments of Norcross and more than a dozen correctional officers involved in a brutality scandal at the women’s prison, among others.
Those fumbles have fueled calls for an outside review of Platkin’s public corruption unit and prompted state legislators from both parties to try to take the state police from his control and subject his staff to wiretaps.
Platkin called the criticism “baseless personal attacks” rooted in his mission to hold people accountable, regardless of political party or position, from drug traffickers up to President Donald Trump.
“These are people with positions of power who have bully pulpits. I don’t hear them saying it’s political prosecutions when we take down 30-plus-defendant mafia rings or drug cartels or gangs engaged in gun violence. But when you prosecute a politician, people who don’t like it want to accuse you of having a political agenda,” Platkin said. “That’s not new, by the way, but I do think the severity of the attacks has increased, and they’re completely unfounded.”
A Norcross spokesman declined to comment for this story. When a state Superior Court judge dismissed the charges against Norcross last year, Norcross attorney Michael Critchley said Platkin “trashed” the reputation of the Attorney General’s Office with the “sham” indictment. Platkin’s office is appealing.
Attorney General Matt Platkin testifies against Bill S4924 in the New Jersey State House, Trenton, NJ, Monday, Dec. 1, 2025. (Photo by Anne-Marie Caruso/New Jersey Monitor) One of Platkin’s more public clashes with his critics came earlier this month, when a Senate panel unanimously passed a bill that would have weakened the state comptroller’s office, which also investigates public corruption.
That hearing was helmed by Sen. James Beach (D-Camden), a close Norcross ally and architect of the plan to remove state police from the Attorney General’s Office. Beach clashed with Platkin, U.S. Sen. Andy Kim, and acting Comptroller Kevin Walsh when they testified against the bill, telling Platkin, “You, sir, have drug down the department!”
Platkin called the hearing an “embarrassment” and followed it up with an unusual written rebuke to Beach, accusing him of violating the free speech rights of the bill’s critics by limiting the time they could testify about the measure while allowing some of the bill’s supporters to speak at length about it.
Platkin told the New Jersey Monitor that the government cannot discriminate against people because it doesn’t like their speech.
“Once you open the door up to give people a platform to speak, you have to give everyone a fair shot to speak,” he said. “He stacked the deck. He was dismissive, he was arrogant, he was aggressive, he was insulting — to a United States senator, just as he was to ordinary residents of our state. And what message does that send to people of New Jersey and across the country, who have the lowest level of faith in their government institutions that they’ve had since the Civil War?”
Beach declined to comment through a spokesman. Sen. Nicholas Scutari, who sponsored the bill, later withdrew it and said he won’t meddle again with the comptroller’s powers.
Platkin also tangled with Murphy after first lady Tammy Murphy launched a bid for the U.S. Senate seat when its former occupant, Bob Menendez, was indicted and later convicted in a global bribery scheme and resigned in disgrace.
Kim was the first to announce he wanted the seat. As the state’s party leaders lined up to endorse Tammy Murphy, Kim sued to challenge the county line, which gave party leaders’ preferred candidates better placement on the ballot. During the court fight, Platkin offered his unsolicited opinion that the county line must go. Tammy Murphy later dropped out of the race.
Did this cause problems with Gov. Murphy?
“I think he’s been a tremendous governor, and I’ve been proud to serve him directly and him and his administration for almost the entirety of his time in office. He’s always been professional with me, and I’ve genuinely enjoyed the partnership,” Platkin said. “Obviously, that was a personally difficult decision, but one that you could look at now … was the right legal outcome.”
Murphy told the New Jersey Monitor he has no hard feelings.
“It’s history. Matt’s done a hell of a job, in particular, I have to say, fighting the Trump administration, where he’s led with great force and stature,” Murphy said.
Platkin has joined or led at least 43 federal lawsuits against the Trump administration.
New Jersey Attorney General Matt Platkin talks with activists rallying outside the James A. Byrne U.S. Courthouse in Philadelphia on Oct. 25, 2023, in support of New Jersey’s contested gun law. (Photo by Dana DiFilippo/New Jersey Monitor) Platkin cited a number of actions as his proudest moments as attorney general, including his fights against Trump’s policies, his work against gun violence, and lawsuits against tech giants like Meta, TikTok, and Discord, whose platforms he alleges have fueled social media addiction among youth.
A gun violence reduction advocate since high school, he said his role as attorney general gave him the power to make change on the issue — and his two young children gave him the drive.
“I grew up in the Columbine generation. I thought we would have solved this problem,” Platkin said. “My daughter had her first school shooting drill before she could walk. Weeks ago, I got an email that they played Elmo in the closet to keep 2-year-olds from being too loud during a school shooting drill. That’s not normal. And that’s not Second Amendment rights.”
Platkin has defended New Jersey’s strict gun laws against challenges by the gun lobby, expanded tracking of gun carry applications, taken steps to better investigate gun crimes, targeted gun retailers, supported community-based violence intervention work, and more. He said all this has helped cut gun violence in New Jersey to record lows since statewide tracking began in 2009.
“We know that it’s not 9.5 million people engaging in gun violence. It’s like 1,000 people. So when you think about it that way, it’s actually quite a solvable problem, or at least a problem that you can reduce. And we’ve tried to focus on those people that we know are habitually involved in violence,” he said.
Platkin wouldn’t say much about where he’ll go after Jen Davenport, Sherrill’s choice for attorney general, succeeds him. But it won’t be politics, he said.
“I can tell you for sure I’m not running for office,” he said. “I find it kind of funny that people can’t imagine that somebody might do something because they think it’s right, not because it furthers a political narrative.”
He vowed to remain active in many of the battles he waged as attorney general.
“I didn’t start caring about these things when I took office in 2022, and I’m not going to stop caring about them in 2026,” he said. “In some way, shape, or form, I’m going to stay involved in these fights.”
Assemblyman Antwan McClellan (R-Cape May), who last year pushed for Platkin’s impeachment, called his legacy “a failure.”
McClellan pointed to prosecutorial missteps that resulted in the collapse of high-profile cases; Platkin’s numerous lawsuits against the Trump administration; his office’s lengthy, unresolved investigations that leave state troopers and other targets in limbo; and his decision to supersede the Paterson Police Department over the objections of its chief and the city’s mayor. The latter sparked a court fight that went up to the state Supreme Court, which deemed the state takeover lawful.
“It’s all chasing headlines, as opposed to grinding down and really doing the work that needed to be done and what’s expected from the attorney general of the state,” McClellan said.
