Mastodawn

Nonilex Jul 14, 2025

Two-thirds of the #DOJ unit defending #Trump policies in court have quit

The #US *Justice* Department unit charged with defending against legal challenges to signature Trump administration policies - such as restricting birthright citizenship & slashing funding to Harvard University - has lost nearly two-thirds of its staff, according to a list seen by Reuters.

#law #lawless #felon47 #judiciary #RuleOfLaw #constitution
https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/two-thirds-doj-unit-defending-trump-policies-court-have-quit-2025-07-14/

Nonilex Jul 14, 2025

69 of the roughly 110 lawyers in the #FederalPrograms Branch have voluntarily left the unit since #Trump's election in November or have announced plans to leave, according to the list compiled by former #DOJ lawyers & reviewed by Reuters.

The tally has not been previously reported. Using court records & LinkedIn accounts, Reuters was able to verify the departure of all but 4 names on the list.

#law #lawless #felon47 #judiciary #RuleOfLaw #constitution

Nonilex Jul 14, 2025

Reuters spoke to 4 former #lawyers in the unit & 3 other people familiar with the departures who said some staffers had grown demoralized & exhausted defending an onslaught of lawsuits against the #Trump admin.

"Many of these people came to work at #FederalPrograms to defend aspects of our constitutional system," said one lawyer who left the unit during Trump's 2nd term. "How could they participate in the project of tearing it down?"

#law #lawless #felon47 #judiciary #RuleOfLaw #constitution

Nonilex Jul 14, 2025

Critics have accused the #Trump admin of flouting the #law in its aggressive use of #ExecutivePower, including by retaliating against perceived enemies & dismantling agencies created by #Congress.

The Trump admin has broadly defended its actions as within the legal bounds of #PresidentialPower & has won several early victories at #SCOTUS. A WH spox told Reuters that Trump's actions were legal, & declined to comment on the departures.

#lawless #felon47 #judiciary #RuleOfLaw #constitution

Nonilex Jul 14, 2025

"Any sanctimonious career bureaucrat expressing faux outrage over the President’s policies while sitting idly by during the rank weaponization by the previous administration has no grounds to stand on," #Trump WH spox Harrison Fields said in a stmnt🙄.

The 7 lawyers who spoke w/Reuters cited a punishing workload & the need to defend policies that some felt were not legally justifiable among the key reasons for the wave of departures.

#law #lawless #felon47 #judiciary #RuleOfLaw #constitution

Three of them said some career lawyers feared they would be pressured to misrepresent #facts or #legal issues in court, a violation of #ethics rules that could lead to professional #sanctions.

…Some turnover in the #FederalPrograms Branch is common between presidential administrations, but the 7 sources described the number of people quitting as highly unusual.

#Trump #law #lawless #felon47 #judiciary #RuleOfLaw #constitution

Nonilex Jul 14, 2025

Reuters was unable to find comparative figures for previous administrations. However, 2 former attorneys in the unit & 2 others familiar with its work said the scale of departures is far greater than during Trump's first term & Joe Biden's administration.

The exits include at least 10 of the section's 23 supervisors, experienced litigators who in many cases served across presidential admins, according to 2 of the lawyers.

#Trump #DOJ #law #lawless #felon47 #judiciary #RuleOfLaw #constitution

Nonilex Jul 14, 2025

In its broad overhaul of the #DOJ, the #Trump admin has fired or sidelined dozens of #lawyers who specialize in prosecuting #NationalSecurity & #corruption cases & publicly encouraged departures from the #CivilRights Division.

But the #FederalPrograms Branch, which defends challenges to White House & federal agency policies in federal trial courts, remains critical to its agenda.

#law #lawless #felon47 #judiciary #RuleOfLaw #constitution

Nonilex Jul 14, 2025

The unit is fighting to sustain actions of the *cost-cutting* #DOGE formerly overseen by #ElonMusk; #Trump’s order restricting #BirthrightCitizenship & his attempt to freeze $2.5B in funding to #Harvard.

"We've never had an administration pushing the legal envelope so quickly, so aggressively & across such a broad range of government policies & programs," said Peter Keisler, who led #DOJ’s Civil Division under Republican President George W. Bush.

#law #judiciary #RuleOfLaw #constitution

Nonilex Jul 14, 2025

"The demands are intensifying at the same time that the ranks of lawyers there to defend these cases are dramatically thinning."

The departures have left the #Justice Department scrambling to fill vacancies. More than a dozen lawyers have been temporarily reassigned to the section from other parts of the #DOJ & it has been exempted from the #FederalGovernment hiring freeze, according to 2 former lawyers in the unit.

#Trump #law #lawless #felon47 #judiciary #RuleOfLaw #constitution

Nonilex Jul 14, 2025

#DOJ leadership has also brought in about 15 #political appointees to help defend civil cases, an unusually high number.

The new attorneys, many of whom have a record defending conservative causes, have been more comfortable pressing legal boundaries, acc/to 2 fmr lawyers in the unit.

#Trump #law #lawless #felon47 #judiciary #RuleOfLaw #constitution

Nonilex Jul 14, 2025

"They have to be willing to advocate on behalf of their clients & not fear the political fallout," said Mike Davis, head of #ArticleIIIProject, a pro-#Trump legal advocacy group, referring to the role of #DOJ lawyers in defending the admin's policies.

People who have worked in the section expect the #FederalPrograms Branch to play an important role in the Trump admin's attempts to capitalize on a #SCOTUS ruling limiting the ability of #judges to block its policies nationwide.

#law #judiciary

Nonilex Jul 14, 2025

Its lawyers are expected to seek to narrow prior court rulings & also defend against an anticipated rise in #ClassAction lawsuits challenging #Trump policies.

Lawyers in the unit are opposing 2 attempts by advocacy organizations to establish a nationwide class of people to challenge Trump's order on #BirthrightCitizenship. A judge granted one request on Thursday.

#DOJ #law #lawless #felon47 #judiciary #RuleOfLaw #constitution

Nonilex Jul 14, 2025

4 fmr #DOJ lawyers told Reuters some attorneys in the #FederalPrograms Branch left over policy differences w/ #Trump, but many had served in the first Trump admin & viewed their role as defending the govt regardless of the party in power.

The 4 lawyers who left said they feared Trump admin policies to dismantle certain #FederalAgencies & claw back #funding appeared to violate the US #Constitution or were enacted without following processes that were more defensible in court.

#law #judiciary

Nonilex Jul 14, 2025

Govt lawyers often walked into court with little information from the #WhiteHouse & #FederalAgencies about the actions they were defending, the four lawyers said.

…AG #PamBondi in Feb threatened disciplinary action against govt lawyers who did not vigorously advocate for #Trump’s agenda. The memo to #DOJ employees warned career lawyers they could not "substitute personal political views or judgments for those that prevailed in the election."

#law #felon47 #judiciary #RuleOfLaw #constitution

Nonilex Jul 14, 2025

4 of the #lawyers Reuters spoke with said there was a widespread concern that attorneys would be forced to make arguments that could violate attorney #ethics rules, or refuse assignments & risk being fired.

Those fears grew when #DOJ leadership fired a fmr supervisor in the Office of #Immigration Litigation, a separate Civil Division unit, accusing him of failing to forcefully defend the admin’s position in the case of #KilmarAbregoGarcia, the man wrongly deported to El Salvador.

Nonilex Jul 14, 2025

The supervisor, #ErezReuveni, filed a #whistleblower complaint, made public last month, alleging he faced pressure from admin officials to make unsupported legal arguments & adopt strained interpretations of rulings in 3 #immigration cases.

#DOJ officials have publicly disputed the claims, casting him as disgruntled. A senior official, #EmilBove, told a #Senate panel that he never advised defying courts.

#Trump #law #lawless #felon47 #judiciary #RuleOfLaw #constitution

Nonilex Jul 14, 2025

Career #lawyers were also uncomfortable defending Trump’s #ExecutiveOrders targeting #LawFirms, according to 2 former #DOJ lawyers & a 3rd person familiar with the matter.

A longtime ally of #PamBondi who defended all 4 #LawFirm cases argued they were a lawful exercise of #PresidentialPower. #Judges ultimately struck down all 4 as violating the #Constitution. The #Trump admin has indicated it will appeal at least one case.

#law #lawless #felon47 #judiciary #RuleOfLaw

Drew Crecente (they)Jul 14, 2025

@Nonilex @Npars01

An important aspect of the Rule of Law - which I'm hopeful will help guide us through this mess - is the role of the various state Bars to enforce ethical guidelines for practicing lawyers.

This year, DOJ lawyers have arguably violated ethics rules of various states, based on the Model Rules of Professional Conduct (ABA), and have seemingly done so at the behest of AG Bondi.[1]

Pam Bondi has had several ethics complaints filed with the Florida Bar for, among other things, allegedly coercing DOJ lawyers to engage in unethical conduct to avoid termination.[2][3][4]

State Bars have significant power and it appears some DOJ attorneys are at least aware of the potential impacts to them personally.

Hopefully we will see more action here.

[1] ABA's MRPC 🌐 https://www.americanbar.org/groups/professional_responsibility/publications/model_rules_of_professional_conduct/model_rules_of_professional_conduct_table_of_contents/

[2] Newsweek article about Bondi complaint: 🌐 https://www.newsweek.com/pam-bondi-accused-serious-misconduct-florida-bar-complaint-2081798

[3] Complaint about Bondi: 🌐 https://ldad.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Pamela-Bondi-Ethics-Complaint-6.5.25-1.pdf

[4] Inartful opinion piece by The Miami Herald Editorial Board defending Florida Bar's dismissal of ethics complaint against Bondi: 🌐 https://www.thestate.com/opinion/article308052090.html

#RuleOfLaw #Law #DOJ #Bondi #ABA #ethics #lawyers @law

Peter Brown Jul 14, 2025

@Nonilex typical of a dictator not to understand that court judgements are an application of the law, not the opinions of the dictator. And that in an adversarial procedure both sides have to a right be professionally represented by lawyers. These lawyers are not doing so because they agree with either the prosecution or the defence but because it is their job in a democracy to do so.

Even the foulest murderer or rapist has a right to a defence at law - they may not actually be guilty!

Peter Brown Jul 14, 2025

@Nonilex typical of a dictator not to understand that court judgements are an application of the law, not the opinions of the dictator. And that in an adversarial procedure both sides have to a right be professionally represented by lawyers. These lawyers are not doing so because they agree with either the prosecution or the defence but because it is their job in a democracy to do so.

Even the foulest murderer or rapist has a right to a defence at law - they may not actually be guilty!