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‘THIS JOB SUCKS’ DESCRIBES THE CURRENT STATE OF DOJ
The wheels appear to be coming off the trucks at the Dept of Justice.
The Atlantic reported last month that DOJ had lost nearly 10,000 employees from Nov 2024 to Nov 2025. U.S. Attorneys’ offices have shed 14% of their workforce, a staggering one-year reduction unlike anything the department has seen in recent memory, former officials told The New York Times.
It’s not surprising. As (now former) AUSA Julie Le told a Minnesota district judge in open court, “The system sucks. This job sucks. I wish you could hold me in contempt so that I could get 24 hours of sleep.” Le had been assigned 88 cases in less than a month, according to an NBC News review of federal court records.
What’s worse for the government, the U.S. Attorneys’ offices – long a plum job for outstanding young lawyers – are facing serious recruiting problems. Chad Mizelle, a former chief of staff to Attorney General Pam Bondi, posted an unusual solicitation on the X formerly known as Twitter in early February:
“If you are a lawyer, are interested in being an AUSA, and support President Trump and anti-crime agenda, [direct message] me.”
The New York Times observed that the “post reflected the prevailing sentiment inside the department — that Mr. Trump has the right to hire only those willing to execute his agenda. It also highlighted the dynamic that appears to be contributing to the very staffing shortages Mr. Mizelle tried to address. The intermingling of law enforcement and political goals has made the department, long a magnet for platinum legal talent, an unappealing landing spot…”
The number of DOJ and AUSA applications is down significantly, officials told the Times, even as Trump loyalists have publicized vacancies through official and unconventional channels. One former prosecutor who served on a hiring committee in the U.S. Attorney’s offices for the Central District of California, said that candidates who expressed support for Trump policies were often ahead of applicants, even candidates with weak academic records and little litigation experience.
Meanwhile, the diminished numbers at DOJ and the U.S. Attorneys’ offices are being called on to do a lot more. The Atlantic said DOJ lawyers spent weeks vetting the Jeffrey Epstein files in response to the Epstein Files Transparency Act. The DOJ dedicated hundreds of lawyers, including more than 125 from the Southern District of New York, to reviewing over two million documents in the case.
“Add to that,” the Atlantic said, “a backlog of federal immigration cases and the ongoing legal fallout from the administration’s mass-deportation push, and the result is an organization that is thoroughly overwhelmed.”
In a rare ruling, in late February, Minnesota District Judge Paul A. Magnuson dismissed a felon-in-possession case under the Speedy Trial Act after prosecutors told the court that factors including a staffing shortage had prevented their office from meeting a deadline. The U.S. Attorney’s office has lost a significant number of experienced AUSAs who objected to the way DOJ was handling cases related to the immigration crackdown in the state.
The effect of all of this is becoming obvious. In New Jersey, the District Court forced the Acting U.S. Attorney to audit the government’s sorry record of compliance with court orders. In a filing last month, the government admitted to violating court orders 56 times in 574 immigration proceedings. The total included 18 missed deadlines and 10 failures to turn over evidence as ordered.
The presumption of regularity is a judicially created doctrine that grants the government an advantage not enjoyed by private litigants. The presumption directs courts, unless there is clear evidence to the contrary, that executive officials have “properly discharged their official duties” and that government agencies have acted with procedural regularity and with good-faith, non-pretextual reasons.
Courts and scholars are now wondering whether the government should continue to enjoy that presumption. The liberal website Just Security and the conservative Cato Institute have both questioned it in lengthy articles. The liberal blog Talking Points Memo said last month, “The pace of this important story is slow by dramatic standards, but by the somnambulant standards of the federal judiciary, the erosion of the credibility of the Justice Department, which took decades to establish and has all but vanished in one year under Trump II, is moving at lightning speed.”
Last month, District Judge Christine O’Hearn (District of New Jersey), wrote, “[T]he presumption of regularity and integrity previously and routinely afforded to the Executive branch and the United States Attorney’s Office has been undeniably eroded in this jurisdiction and across the country, and this Court will no longer blindly accept statements of fact from Respondents unless they are made under oath by an individual with personal knowledge…”
At the end of January, Minnesota Chief District Judge Patrick Schiltz issued an order that found that Immigration and Customs Enforcement had violated 96 court orders stemming from its crackdown in the state and had disobeyed more court orders in one month than “some federal agencies have violated in their entire existence.”
When U.S. Attorney Daniel Rosen emailed Judge Schiltz to complain that 96 violations was an exaggeration, Schiltz blasted back, warning Rosen that his office and ICE officials must comply with court orders or risk criminal contempt.
On March 5, the Minnesota Reformer reported that for a second time in a week, Rosen was ordered to appear before two different judges to explain why he should not be held in contempt for the government’s violations of court orders.
All of this is consequential for federal prisoners, who, on one hand, will experience more delay from more frequent government extensions but, on the other, may find government opposition to their motions less competently (and less honestly) done. To be sure, an inmate filer should be more vigorous in arguing that the government should receive no benefit from a presumption of good faith and regularity.
A final note on this incomplete listing of all of DOJ’s current travails: last week, a senior AUSA in the Eastern District of North Carolina was fired after filing a response in a civil action that included “fabricated quotations and misstatements of case holdings” and then made “false or misleading statements” about their origins, according to Bloomberg Law.
In a March 2 order, a District Court magistrate judge ordered the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of North Carolina senior leadership into court to explain why the entire office shouldn’t be held jointly responsiblefor the undisclosed and incredibly sloppy use of artificial intelligence in a court filing.
The AUSA told the Court that he had used AI to “catch up” on a draft filing and that the errors were accidental. But the Magistrate Judge looked at prior filings by the same AUSA and found similar errors. “It’s difficult to credit your response given what you’ve done here,” the Judge said. No presumption of regularity here…
The New York Times, 220,000 Fewer Workers: How Trump’s Cuts Affected Every Federal Agency (January 9, 2026)
NBC News, Government attorney who told judge in ICE case, ‘This job sucks,’ removed from detail (February 4, 2026)
The Atlantic, The DOJ Isn’t Built for This (February 19, 2026)
The New York Times, Demanding Support for Trump, Justice Dept. Struggles to Recruit Prosecutors (February 11, 2026)
Just Security, The “Presumption of Regularity” in Trump Administration Litigation (November 20, 2025)
Cato Institute, Do the Feds Still Merit the Court’s Presumption of Regularity? (January 5, 2026)
Talking Points Memo, Judges Big Mad at Trump DOJ in Wave of New Rebukes (February 23, 2026)
Declaration, Doc 21-1, Kumar v Soto, Case No. 2:26-cv-777 (D. New Jersey, filed February 13, 2026)
Order, Doc 10, Singh v Tsoukaris, Case No 1:26-cv-1531(D. New Jersey, filed February 20, 2026)
Order, Doc 10, Juan TR v. Noem, Case No 0-26-cv-107 (D. Minn., filed January 26, 2026)
Minnesota Reformer, US Attorney Daniel Rosen defends himself, again, in contempt hearing for ICE order violations (March 5, 2026)
ABA Journal, Federal prosecutor resigns after AI errors found in court filing (March 11, 2026)
~ Thomas L. Root