A List of the Trump Administration’s Attacks on DOJ
Justice Connection’s DOJ Tracker outlines actions the Trump administration has taken since day one to harm the Department of Justice’s workforce, the institution itself, and the public it serves. We will update this list regularly to keep the public informed of ongoing attacks.
January
- Jan. 20:
- DOJ fires four top immigration court officials on the day of the inauguration.
- Jan 21:
- OPM directs federal agencies to put employees with DEI-related jobs on paid administrative leave; termination of these officials at DOJ follows.
- Senior career attorneys in the National Security Division, Criminal Division, and elsewhere are reassigned to “sanctuary cities” working group.
- Jan 22:
- Jan 23:
- Jan 24:
- DOJ stops enforcement of abortion-related FACE-Act violations and dismisses three ongoing cases.
- Top career leaders in the Civil Rights Division are transferred to “sanctuary cities” working group.
- Jan 27:
- Senior career ethics official Brad Weinsheimer is reassigned to “sanctuary cities” working group. Decision-making authority over ethics, employee discipline, disclosures to Congress, Inspector-General requests for grand-jury material, Office of Special Counsel referrals, and other sensitive matters is handed to political appointees.
- More than a dozen prosecutors who worked on special-counsel Jack Smith’s investigations into President Trump are fired; their termination letters state they cannot be “trusted” to “faithfully” implement President Trump’s agenda.
- Interim U.S. Attorney for D.C. Ed Martin launches investigation into Jan. 6 prosecutors.
- Jan 31:
- DOJ leadership orders review of all FBI agents assigned to Jan. 6 cases.
- Eight senior executives at FBI headquarters are fired. Assistant Director in Charge of FBI’s Washington Field Office and special agents in charge of Miami and Las Vegas field offices are terminated.
- DOJ provides notice that the Law and Policy Section within the Environment and Natural Resources Division and its 20 staff members will be eliminated.
February
- Feb 2:
- Thousands of FBI employees are ordered to answer a questionnaire about their roles in Jan. 6 investigations.
- Feb 4:
- FBI submits details of over 5,000 employees who worked on Jan. 6 cases to DOJ; agents later sued.
- Feb 5:
- Pam Bondi is sworn in as Attorney General and immediately issues 14 directives, including the creation of a task-force to examine the “weaponisation” of DOJ. Another directive disbands Foreign Influence Task Force, Task Force KleptoCapture, and the Kleptocracy Asset Recovery Initiative, and curbs Foreign Agents Registration Act enforcement.
- Feb 10:
- President Trump signs executive order pausing DOJ’s enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.
- Feb 13:
- Acting U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Danielle Sassoon, acting head of the Public Integrity Section John Keller, his supervisor in the Criminal Division Kevin Driscoll, and three other career prosecutors resign rather than move to dismiss the criminal case against Mayor Eric Adams.
- Feb 14:
- Feb 18:
- Top criminal prosecutor at the D.C. U.S. Attorney’s Office resigns after refusing to investigate Biden-era climate-funding claims without sufficient evidence.
- Feb 21:
- FBI orders transfer of 1,500 staff out of Washington headquarters.
- Feb. 26:
- DOJ ends lawsuits accusing law-enforcement departments of discrimination based on tests given to applicants for jobs or promotions.
- Feb. 28:
- DOJ demotes seven of the most senior prosecutors in the D.C. U.S. Attorney’s Office to entry-level roles; the seven were reportedly targeted for political retribution.
March
- March 3:
- March 4:
- White House lists FBI and DOJ headquarters buildings for possible sale.
- March 6:
- Brad Bondi and Alicia Long launch campaigns for leadership positions in the D.C. Bar, where many federal attorneys are licensed.
- March 7:
- March 11:
- DOJ’s Public Integrity Section, which was created after Watergate to centralise enforcement of public corruption, is gutted and cases are reassigned to U.S. Attorney’s Offices.
- March 14:
- President Trump delivers a speech at DOJ HQ where he names individuals and non-profits he would like to see prosecuted, suggests the people who “rigged” the 2020 election “should go to jail,” boasts of firing senior FBI officials, and suggests that media criticism of him is illegal.
- Attorney General Bondi issues memo granting law-enforcement authority to arrest suspected gang members in their homes without a warrant under the Alien Enemies Act.
- March 15:
- FBI decentralises its command structure, moving to a regional model. The previous command structure where all 52 field offices reported to the deputy director was implemented after 9/11 to reduce lapses in communication and intelligence reporting.
- March 21:
- FBI reassigns staff in its domestic-terrorism unit and stops using a national database that tracks domestic-terrorism and hate-crime cases.
- March 22:
- News breaks that FBI Director Kash Patel plans to move as many as 1,000 ATF agents to the FBI.
- Late March:
- DOJ moves to publish Jeffrey Epstein files without fully redacting witness and victim details.
- Kristina Rose, former director of DOJ Office for Victims of Crime, spoke to The Wall Street Journal on behalf of Justice Connection: “Revealing personally identifiable information from the Epstein files without the victims’ permission or consultation is a shocking betrayal of trust and an appalling violation of the Justice Department’s own policies.”
- March 25:
- DOJ issues memo proposing the merger of ATF and DEA, and cutting staff in Criminal Division and National Security Division offices that handle foreign bribery, counter-intelligence, and export controls…
- March 27–28:
- White House fires two longtime career prosecutors, one after Laura Loomer called for his termination.
- Justice Connection states the move is “likely unprecedented… the very weaponisation this administration pretends to oppose.”
- Justice Connection in the Associated Press adds: “The integrity of our legal system … cannot happen when the White House fires career prosecutors to advance a political agenda.”
April
- April 4:
- Armed U.S. marshals are dispatched to Liz Oyer’s house to discourage her from appearing in Congress two days before her scheduled testimony.
- April 5:
- Office of Immigration Litigation supervisory attorney Erez Reuveni is placed on administrative leave over his representation of the government in the Kilmar Abrego Garcia case.
- Justice Connection in New York Times: “Justice Department attorneys are being put in an impossible position: Obey the president, or uphold their ethical duty to the court and the Constitution.”
- Justice Connection in Associated Press and NBC News: “We should all be grateful to DOJ lawyers who choose principle over politics and the rule of law over partisan loyalty.”
- Office of Immigration Litigation supervisory attorney Erez Reuveni is placed on administrative leave over his representation of the government in the Kilmar Abrego Garcia case.
- April 7:
- DOJ’s National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Unit is disbanded.
- April 9:
- April 10:
- DOJ cancels $3.2 million in grants to the ABA meant for training lawyers to represent victims of domestic and sexual abuse.
- Approx April 11:
- April 13:
- Long-term Office of Immigration Litigation supervisory attorney Erez Reuveni is fired.
- Justice Connection in The Wall Street Journal: Reuveni would “never shirk his ethical responsibilities and commitment to the rule of law, and the fact that DOJ attorneys now seem to be expected to do so is appalling.”
- Long-term Office of Immigration Litigation supervisory attorney Erez Reuveni is fired.
- April 15:
- DOJ issues new policy threatening stiff penalties for employees who post anything related to work on social media.
- April 16:
- News breaks that interim D.C. U.S. Attorney Martin appeared on Russian state media over 150 times.
- April 18:
- DOJ leadership grants DOGE access to sensitive immigration records.
- Mid-April:
- Civil Rights Division leadership issues mission statements aligning the division’s work with President Trump’s policy agenda; more than a dozen senior division leaders are reassigned and career staff resign in droves.
- April 22:
- April 23:
- DOJ cancels hundreds of grants from the Office of Justice Programs to local governments and non-profits.
- April 24:
- News breaks that DOJ plans to shutter its Consumer Protection Branch by Sept. 30.
- April 25:
- News breaks that interim D.C. U.S. Attorney Ed Martin sent letters to three medical journals and threatened Wikipedia’s tax-exempt status for allegedly allowing “foreign actors” to “reshape or rewrite history.”
- April 27:
- Attorney General Bondi issues memo allowing subpoenas and compelled testimony of journalists in leak cases involving classified, privileged, or “other sensitive information.”