U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Ferris Pirro gestures, as she holds a press conference at the Department of Justice, in Washington, D.C., U.S., August 12, 2025. REUTERS/Annabelle Gordon
Politico Senior Legal Affairs Reporter Josh Gerstein reports yet another judge is slapping President Donald Trump’s DOJ around for grade-school behavior.
The slap-down came after the office of U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro crawled, hat-in-hand, requesting the extension of a deadline to complete research to make its case in a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit filed by Shorelight, LLC against the U.S. government over student visa refusal rates.
“The Department represents that the remaining searches for records responsive to Parts 1-3o f Plaintiff’s FOIA request are currently ongoing, but that, due to an oversight, the Department did not realize that the Court’s Minute Order also required these searches to be completed by this same date,” wrote Assistant United States Attorney Fithawi Berhane, representing Pirro’s office. “Defendant sincerely apologizes for this oversight, and assures the Court that it is taking steps to ensure that it does not reoccur.
But Judge Sparkle Sooknanan, of the U.S. District Court for The District of Columbia, had no patience for Berhane’s request, considering how many such rookie moves her department apparently has already made.
“… This is not the first nor even the second mistake made by the defendant in this case the defendant previously committed to making efforts to ensure that this case,” grumbled Sooknanan. “… The defendants previously committed to making efforts to ensure that this case can move forward expeditiously and in a manner that avoids unnecessary burdening the Court.”
Sooknanan then said she agreed with plaintiff Shorelight, LLC “that despite that commitment the defendant's conduct is developing into a concerning pattern that has recurred throughout this litigation.”
“Nevertheless to ensure this case proceeds in an orderly fashion the court grants the defendants motion nunc pro tunc. The Defendant shall complete its searches by June 24th 2026 and the parties shall file the previously ordered joint status report by July 1 2026,” the judge said.
However, she cautioned that “the court will not tolerate further delays caused by the defendant and it expects that the defendant will comport itself with the level of care expected of a United States agency in Federal Court.”
The rebuke amounts to an embarrassing verbal beatdown for a department that used to be occupied by vetted professionals and legal veterans before President Donald Trump razed the department of experts and replaced them with recent graduates and right-wing ideologues.
Now, experts and insiders report DOJ lawyers are few, overworked and inexperienced — to the point where the department is now trying to coax recruits with a $25k signing bonus.