Trump scrambling as White House runs out of lawyers to defend the MAGA agenda in court

Alina Habba attends her swearing-in ceremony as interim U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey, in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., March 28, 2025. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein/File Photo

MS NOW writer and editor Hayes Brown says the list of lawyers willing to jeopardize their reputations and their law licenses to pursue President Donald Trump’s lawfare against his perceived enemies is “growing blessedly shorter.”

“As it stands, the scramble to find lawyers who are both sufficiently loyal and able to make ridiculously political arguments hold up in court is failing,” said Brown.

Monday saw a federal appeals panel confirm that Alina Habba’s controversial appointment as the U.S. attorney for New Jersey wasn’t legitimate. This ruling came on the heels of a different federal judge’s determination that Trump appointee Lindsey Halligan was unlawfully appointed to serve as the interim U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia.

“Both Habba and Halligan came to their roles after previously acting as personal attorneys to President Trump. That they were tapped at all showcases how weak the backbench of lawyers willing to defend the MAGA agenda in court really is,” said Brown. “And with their dismissals, it’s safe to say that Trump is running low on lawyers to fill in the massive gaps needed to skillfully defend his most controversial policies.”

Brown said the sheer number of lawsuits in which Trump has involved himself created a “fertile ground” for presidential appointments this term, including Trump’s loyalists Attorney General Pamela Bondi, her top deputy, Todd Blanche, Emil Bove, Civil Rights Division head Harmeet Dhillon and Solicitor General John Sauer. But filling out the rest of the Justice Department’s ranks has proven much more difficult, especially with Bondi, Bove and Blanche having overseen the mass firing and forced transfer of many career attorneys who had worked on the federal cases against Trump or on issues that go against the MAGA ethos. A further torrent of resignations has added to the gutting of many of the DOJ’s offices have undergone,” said Brown.

Filling in the gaps from the thousands of departures with qualified MAGA-friendly lawyers is even more difficult. The Washington Post reported last month that a newly politicized hiring process has meant “attorneys in divisions that have seen significant departures are stretched thin, unable to keep up with incoming cases or complaints.”

Adding to troubles, said Brown, is the fact that the Trump administration pulled a record number of nominations due to a combination of GOP pushback and vetting issues. This leaves smaller stable of Senate-confirmed figures to appoint to acting roles.

“Look no further than Habba’s initial appointment to see what a struggle the Justice Department has had in finding qualified prosecutors,” said Brown.

Habba, who was was unable to win Senate confirmation as U.S. attorney, was instead moved back into the spot despite her interim appointment lapsing. But Brown says she is “pinch hitter” drafted after the original Eastern District of Virginia appointee refused to pursue Trump’s enemies without clear evidence of a crime. And her lack of experience prompted a judge to toss her charges against former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James.

Trump’s beholden Supreme Court could reverse lower court decisions finding Habba and Halligan’s appointments unlawful, but Brown said the fact that some who “might be more experienced than Halligan and Habba have yet to be tapped is telling.”

“Seeing Habba’s and Halligan’s doomed efforts to bend the law to Trump’s will has been a rare beacon of hope during an overall disconcerting year,” said Brown. “With their removal, the short-list of Trumpist attorneys to carry on their legacy grows blessedly shorter.”

Read the MS NOW report at this link.

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