Acting U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., U.S., June 15, 2026. REUTERS/Annabelle Gordon
After returning to the White House 17 and one-half months ago, President Donald Trump made a concerted effort to give the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) a full MAGA makeover with appointments that included former U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi, FBI Director Kash Patel, federal prosecutor Jeanine Pirro, and other Trump loyalists. Now, Trump is hoping that Acting U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche — one of his former personal lawyers — will be confirmed by the U.S. Senate and take over that position permanently.
But not everyone in DOJ appreciates Trump's MAGA goals, and according to Daily Beast reporter Janna Brancolini, the agency is in total chaos as longtime federal prosecutors continue to leave.
"President Donald Trump's embattled Department of Justice has imposed new quotas on prosecutors in a bid to shore up its public safety statistics despite an exodus of talent," Brancolini reports. "The department has hemorrhaged thousands of veteran attorneys since Trump returned to office thanks to the president's revenge campaigns, violent immigration crackdown, and increasingly overwhelming workloads. The government has lowered hiring standards and resorted to offering $25,000 signing bonuses, despite historically being deluged with applications from lawyers who were happy to take a pay cut in exchange for the prestige and satisfaction of federal service. But that apparently hasn't been enough to make up for the shortfall, because now the DOJ — which is headed by Trump's former personal attorney Todd Blanche — is taking steps to try to show the department is doing more with less, Bloomberg Law reported."
According to Bloomberg Law's Ben Penn, DOJ leaders "have started requiring all prosecutors to maintain at least 25 open cases, tightening the Trump administration's grip on operational decisions previously left to U.S. attorneys."
Former DOJ official Mark Yancey is highly critical of current DOJ policies.
Yancey told Bloomberg Law, "A one-size-fits-all policy is unworkable. These things need to be worked at the district level by the U.S. attorney."
Brancolini notes that according to reporting from the New York Times on May 31, a total of 2665 attorneys had left DOJ since Trump's return to the White House — which was 21 percent of DOJ attorneys.
"The White House's aggressive immigration crackdown has also diverted criminal prosecutors from their usual caseloads as they've been forced to respond to a surge in civil habeas corpus petitions from immigrants who had been denied bond hearings," Brancolini notes. "In the meantime, federal judges have increasingly lambasted DOJ attorneys for making false statements to the court and engaging in grand jury misconduct, which has led to several cases being dismissed."
