We post news and comment on federal criminal justice issues, focused primarily on trial and post-conviction matters, legislative initiatives, and sentencing issues.
TOUGH TIMES FOR PROSECUTORS
The Dept of Justice is now requiring all Criminal Division Assistant U.S. Attorneys to maintain at least 25 open cases, “tightening the Trump administration’s grip on operational decisions previously left to US attorneys,” according to Bloomberg Law.
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche’s office communicated the informal “25 open matters” threshold to all 93 U.S. attorneys in recent weeks, with an emphasis on driving up public safety and fraud statistics, four people familiar with the new policy told Bloomberg Law. A formal policy change is still under development, they said.
The new policy comes as DOJ brass try to dispel criticism over personnel departures by purporting to show that the Department is doing more with less.
DOJ has hemorrhaged thousands of veteran attorneys since Trump returned to office due to the President’s revenge campaigns, immigration crackdown, and increasingly overwhelming workloads, Daily Beast reported last week.
The government has lowered hiring standards and offered signing bonuses, despite historically being deluged with applications from lawyers who were happy to take a pay cut in exchange for the prestige of DOJ service.
“A one-size-fits-all policy is unworkable,” said Mark Yancey, a former senior official in the DOJ’s Executive Office for US Attorneys. “These things need to be worked at the district level by the US attorney.”
The quota runs the risk of prosecutors feeling pressured to bring cases with insufficient evidence just to hit their targets, Yancey told Bloomberg Law.
Last week, Blanche appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee for a hearing on his nomination to be the next Attorney General. In the runup to the hearing, a letter signed by 2,649 lawyers and legal professionals was delivered to the Senate urging rejection of Blanche as AG.
“No one in the history of the Justice Department has moved directly from representing a president in criminal proceedings to running the institution that prosecuted those cases,” said Traci Feit Love, Executive Director of Lawyers for Good Government. “Todd Blanche isn’t America’s Attorney General. He is Donald Trump’s personal fixer with a federal badge. The Senate has a constitutional obligation to say no.”
During his confirmation hearing, Blanche was braced by Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) over BOP’s decision to place Ghislaine Maxwell (convicted of helping Jeffrey Epstrein commit sex and trafficking offenses) in a camp, a move some have alleged was in exchange for her testifying that President Trump committed no sex offenses with Epstein. Blanche told Booker that Maxwell was “receiving threats,” which merited the transfer.
Booker argued that under BOP policies, an inmate who receives threats is moved to solitary confinement, not to a minimum-security prison camp.
Blanche countered: “That’s not always true,” but Booker rejected that claim. “What is true is that someone who is accused of child sex trafficking under the Bureau of Prisons’ own policies is not put in a facility like this that seems clearly like a reward,” he said.
What the exchange failed to note that a May 2026 change in BOP designation policy I reported on last month grants the Attorney General the right to make any designation decision he or she pleases regardless of BOP policy. The unheralded change in designation policy that has been in place for 135 years provides ex post facto authority for the Maxwell placement in a camp, as well as a tool that can be abused in years to come to benefit the Administration’s friends and punish its foes.
Questions over Blanche’s role in the DOJ “anti-weaponization” fund and in handling the Epstein files have left at least two Republican senators on the Judiciary Committee undecided. If just one votes ‘no,’ that could block the acting attorney general’s nomination from moving forward. A vote is likely later this month.
US Law Week, DOJ Sets Case Quotas for Line Prosecutors in Push to Boost Stats (July 13, 2026)
Daily Beast, Trump Justice Department Scrambles as Lawyers Flee in Droves (July 14, 2026)
Letter to Senators Grassley and Durbin, Senate Judiciary Committee (July 10, 2026)
The Hill, Booker: ‘Absurdity’ for Blanche to be concerned about Maxwell safety (July 16, 2026)
Christian Science Monitor, Blanche’s nomination for attorney general uncertain after hearing (July 17, 2026)
~ Thomas L. Root