President Donald Trump arrives to board Air Force One for travel to Tennessee from Joint Base Andrews, Maryland, September 26, 2026. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
Amid all his other problems, President Donald Trump is facing a "growing" legal disaster at a vital agency, according to a new piece from The i Paper, and what has been happening recently is just "the tip of the iceberg."
Writing for the outlet on Tuesday, editor Nick Miller explained that the Trump Justice Department has seen "four high-profile resignations" in the span of less than a week, worsening what he called "a growing crisis for an administration addicted to prosecutions and mired in controversy." Among the departures has been Brett Shumate, the assistant attorney general for the DOJ's civil division, who departed in "abrupt" fashion, in a move suspected to have been in response to Stephen Miller being named White House Chief of Staff.
"Last week, the assistant attorneys general for the DOJ’s national security and civil rights divisions also quit," Miller explained. "A key U.S. attorney in Miami, who had overseen an unproductive investigation into Trump’s political enemies, also left last week. None have spoken publicly, but speculation has linked their departure to the Democrats’ surge in the midterms, which will see fresh scrutiny by Congress of Trump’s attempts to use the DoJ as a weapon against political adversaries."
He added further: "And they’re just the tip of the iceberg. More than 10,000 federal lawyers have quit since Trump took office, and many were not replaced. Observers say the drain of talent and experience is damaging the delivery and credibility of justice in America."
The New York Times first reported the 10,000 estimate back in May, estimating that it amounted to an exodus of roughly one-fifth of the DOJ's overall workforce. The effort to refill the agency's ranks has been hampered by "lack of qualified candidates, bureaucratic delays and hiring freezes," according to the American Bar Association Journal. Local U.S. Attorney's offices, meanwhile, have reportedly resorted to begging their contacts in the legal world for potential job applicants.
"The issue was not helped by an internal purge, led by then-Attorney General Pam Bondi, of veteran prosecutors who had worked on cases viewed as anti-Trump," Miller explained. "The purge has continued under [Todd] Blanche, targeting lawyers who refuse to prosecute for lack of evidence cases that the administration wants pursued. And the DoJ has also undermined its own recruiting processes on culture war grounds: in 2025, a Trump appointee to the DC Civil Division threatened the prestigious Georgetown Law School with refusing to hire their graduates unless they ended their diversity-equity -and-inclusion programs, the New Yorker reported. Lawyer by lawyer, the DoJ is shrinking."
He added: "Those left behind are struggling. To put it mildly. An investigation last month by The Hill found the mass exodus of veteran attorneys had meant a huge workload increase for attorneys in the civil division, in some cases almost doubling. It has become a vicious cycle that leads to more resignations."
