'Not normal': Trump DOJ suffers extraordinary string of rebukes from judges

President Donald Trump's Justice Department is facing an extraordinary string of rebukes in court, with one leading reporter stressing that this sort of failure by a presidential administration is "not normal."

On Tuesday, Kyle Cheney, a senior legal affairs reporter for Politico, took to X with the latest update in the DOJ's attempt to level criminal charges against a woman for allegedly vandalizing a World War II memorial in Washington, D.C. The memorial was reportedly found covered in graffiti and a soapy liquid substance. According to Cheney, D.C. District Attorney Jeanine Pirro's second attempt to bring charges against the woman, Melissa Farris of Kentucky, was shot down by a judge, and for particularly bruising reasons.

"Magistrate judge denies US Attorney Pirro’s second bid to lock up Melissa Farris on charges of vandalism to the World War II memorial," Cheney posted. "Says the office botched the standard and recycled argument he already rejected."

"On review, the Court DENIES the government's [11] motion for reconsideration," the order signed by Judge Matthew J. Sharbuagh. "For starters, the government's filing largely misconstrues the nature of the Court's ruling by arguing that the Section 3142(g) factors demonstrate that Ms. Farris presents a risk of flight that cannot reasonably be mitigated with conditions of release, within the meaning of Section 3142(e). The Court did not reach those issues in the context of a full detention hearing because it found that the government failed to show that it was even entitled to a detention hearing under Section 3142(f)(2)(A), based on the theory that this case presents 'a serious risk that [Ms. Farris] will flee.' The government's motion largely fails to grapple with the threshold issue that the Court actually decided."

The filing continued: "Moreover, the government itself invokes a standard that permits reconsideration 'if the judicial officer finds that information exists that was not known to the movant at the time' of the hearing. But under that standard, the government's motion fails to identify any such new information that it contends was not known to it at the time of yesterday's hearing. To the contrary, the motion essentially just recycles the same arguments that the Court considered already."

Responding to Cheney's post, one X user suggested that Sharbaugh had essentially dinged Pirro's office for a "lack of basic reading comprehension," and added, "How embarrassing."

In his own response to Cheney's post, Ken Dilanian, MS NOW's top justice correspondent, noted how out of the ordinary the administration's string of legal losses is.

"For those wondering, it’s not normal for the Justice Department to be consistently rebuked by judges to the extent it’s happening now," Dilanian wrote.

This shutdown from Judge Sharbaugh comes in the wake of Pirro's admission that criminal charges against several individuals for allegedly vandalizing the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool were faulty, noting in a filing that the damages suffered by the landmark were due to the hasty remodel that Trump had pushed for.