The sources—all granted anonymity by the news outlet—described the degree of turnover as highly unusual and said that some members of the unit "had grown demoralized and exhausted defending an onslaught of lawsuits against Trump's administration," Reuters detailed, summarizing their comments. They "cited a punishing workload and the need to defend policies that some felt were not legally justifiable," along with fears that "they would be pressured to misrepresent facts or legal issues in court."
According to the news agency, worries about retaliation grew after DOJ leadership fired Erez Reuveni, a former supervisor in the Office of Immigration Litigation, another Civil Division unit, over the Kilmar Ábrego García case. Reuveni then filed a whistleblower complaint that has generated concern about Emil Bove, now nominated by Trump to serve as a federal appellate judge.
"Many of these people came to work at Federal Programs to defend aspects of our constitutional system," one lawyer who left the unit during Trump's second term told Reuters. "How could they participate in the project of tearing it down?"
Mark Zaid, who has a long record of facing attorneys from the Federal Programs Branch in cases against the U.S. government, said on the social media platform Bluesky that they were "usually top-notch professional, nonpartisan lawyers. Shameful what has happened."
Also sharing the report on Bluesky, Mark Joseph Stern, who covers the courts for Slate, wrote: "Really good piece—but the numbers don't include those who left shortly BEFORE Trump's reelection, when it seemed alarmingly possible, to ensure that they never had to defend lawless, fascist policies in court, even for a day. I understand that group is not small."
"Lawyers who have remained at Federal Programs to continue defending Trump's policies are a disgrace to the legal profession and will carry the immense shame of complicity with authoritarianism for the rest of their lives," he added.
Jonathan Cohn, political director at the group Progressive Mass, similarly said on social media that "the others would resign too if they had any professional or personal ethics."
DOJ lawyers have had to defend Trump's anti-immigrant agenda—from mass deportations that led to hundreds of men, including Ábrego García, being sent to a Salvadoran megaprison to Trump's attack on birthright citizenship, which recently led to a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that limits the power of federal judges. They also have had to defend the administration's attempts to slash government jobs and spending, and the president's targeting of major law firms, which, so far, courts have shot down.
The DOJ told Reuters that the department "will continue to defend the president's agenda" and is hiring to maintain staffing levels from the Biden administration, while a White House spokesperson, Harrison Fields, lashed out at critics of Trump. He said that "any sanctimonious career bureaucrat expressing faux outrage over the president's policies while sitting idly by during the rank weaponization by the previous administration has no grounds to stand on."
Since Trump-appointed Pam Bondi became attorney general, she has faced widespread accusations of "serious professional misconduct that threatens the rule of law and the administration of justice," as over 70 legal experts and three groups put it in a June ethics complaint sent to the Florida Bar.
"The gravamen of this complaint is that Ms. Bondi, personally and through her senior management, has sought to compel Department of Justice lawyers to violate their ethical obligations under the guise of 'zealous advocacy' as announced in her memorandum to all department employees, issued on her first day in office, threatening employees with discipline and possible termination for falling short," the filing states.
Bondi has also faced intense scrutiny in recent days over the DOJ's handling of documents related to the late financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Congressman Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) announced Saturday that this week he plans to introduce a measure "to force a vote demanding the FULL Epstein files be released to the public."
