DOJ purge 'deliberately kneecaps' public safety: ex-prosecutors

President Donald Trump holds a press conference with Attorney General Pam Bondi and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche in the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room on Friday, June 27, 2025. (Official White House Photo by Abe McNatt)

President Donald Trump's weaponization of the U.S. Department of Justice is weakening investigations in civil rights and national security, among other things, according toThe Guardian.

This weaponization, they write, has led to thousands of lawyers leaving or being fired, and, according to data compiled by the nonpartisan Justice Connection, "overall DOJ employment has dropped by about 5,500 lawyers and non-lawyers who have left since Trump took office."

"By contrast, the department last year employed about 10,000 attorneys, according to DOJ data," they add.

Much of this reduction in staff has been the product of Trump's Attorney General Pam Bondi.

"In revamping the department, attorney general Pam Bondi and other top officials have ousted many attorneys they deemed as anti-Trump, including about 20 who worked on the prosecutions of the mob who stormed the Capitol on January 6 to try to stop Congress from certifying Joe Biden as president," they explain.

The priorities of the DOJ have also shifted to pursue MAGA agendas, they write, "leaving some key areas strapped for resources, say critics."

The civil rights division has taken a huge hit, having lost 70 percent of the 600 lawyers and staff who worked there when Trump took office, they report.

Stacey Young, the founder and executive director of Justice Connection, an advocacy group supporting ex- and current DoJ employees, says it's alarming.

"The purge we’ve witnessed at the justice department has been catastrophic, and it isn’t slowing down,” Young, who left the deparment in January after 18 years as a senior attorney, says. "Thousands have already left because of this administration’s degradation of DOJ’s vital work and its attacks on the public servants who do it."

Young says the damage is devastating — and lasting.

"We’re talking about dedicated and brilliant professionals who worked on behalf of the public – not any one president – to protect our national security, our environment, our economic interests, and our civil rights. It may take generations to rebuild what we’re losing," she explains.

Barbara McQuade, a former US attorney for eastern Michigan who now teaches law at the University of Michigan, says that this damage also affects national security.

"While the Trump administration’s purge of attorneys may help advance his agenda to exact revenge on his perceived enemies, the loss of experience comes at a cost to public safety,” she says.

"Effective federal law enforcement requires training and expertise. Understanding the threats to our national security to prioritize counter-measures is not something someone can learn overnight. Dismantling violent gangs and drug cartels requires institutional knowledge. I worry that as we lose experienced investigators and prosecutors who can disrupt acts of violent extremism before they occur, the risk of a terrorist attack becomes a ticking time bomb," McQuade adds.

Trump's obsession with exacting revenge against the likes of former FFBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James is undermining the Justice Department's capabilities and reputation.

Paul Pelletier, a former acting chief of DOJ’s fraud section, says "this office once led the nation in pursuing white collar and national security crimes. This purposeful DOJ-wide decimation by the administration is both shortsighted and broadly harmful to American people."

"While DOJ’s first duty is to protect those vulnerable to criminal and terroristic harm, it’s pretty obvious that the neutering of experienced economic crime and national security prosecutors creates a perniciously permissive environment for bad actors," Pelletier adds.

Jacqueline Kelly, former chief of the civil rights unit in the criminal division of the SDNY US attorney’s office, who left her post over the summer, agrees.

"You don’t need a crystal ball to see how this decimation and redirection of resources could lead to a resurgence of unlawful discrimination and constitutional violations for years to come," Kelly says.

Michael Gordon, a former prosecutor in Tampa who worked on public corruption cases and was fired this summer after over eight years, is also sounding the alarm.

"This administration has deliberately kneecapped the ability of the federal government to investigate and prosecute public corruption,” he says.

Philip Lacovara, who served as counsel to the Watergate special prosecutor, agrees.

"Thanks to Trump’s perversion of the historic mission of the justice department, with enthusiastic cooperation from his pliant attorney general, Pam Bondi, every day offers a bounty of ‘get out of jail free’ cards for criminals at home and abroad," he says.

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