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DOJ TRACKER

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:
    • DOJ freezes civil-rights litigation.
    • DOJ issues memo banning all DEI initiatives and threatening “adverse consequences” for employees who don’t report on their colleagues.
  • Jan 23:
    • DOJ freezes environmental litigation and reassigns at least four Environment and Natural Resources Division section chiefs to “sanctuary cities” working group.
    • DOJ Honors Program is cancelled.
  • 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. Justice Connection in Bloomberg Law: “Transferring the authority over ethics and employee discipline from a career stalwart like Brad Weinsheimer to partisan loyalists could further expose employees to political retribution, and exacerbate the culture of fear at the Department. This move should outrage anyone concerned about the rule of law.”
    • 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. Justice Connection in The Wall Street Journal: Trump administration officials have “declared war on their own workforce.”
    • 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:
    • Assistant U.S. Attorney Hagan Scotten resigns over the Mayor Adams dismissal order. A veteran prosecutor in the Public Integrity Section signs the motion to dismiss, reportedly to prevent the entire office from being fired.
    • DOJ fires multiple immigration judges.
  • 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:
    • Attorney General Bondi says during a Fox News appearance that she will fire employees who “despise Trump.”
    • Lead agent of FBI’s New York field office James Dennehy is forced to retire after he supported FBI leaders who resisted turning over names of Jan. 6 investigators to DOJ leadership.
  • 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:
    • U.S. Pardon Attorney Liz Oyer is fired after resisting Justice Department leadership’s pressure to restore Mel Gibson’s gun rights.
    • Head of DOJ’s Office of Information Policy, Bobak Talebian, is fired.
  • 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. It also proposes merging all grant offices into one, eliminating the Community Relations Service, spreading Tax Division attorneys across U.S. Attorney’s Offices, housing the Civil Division’s Consumer Protection Branch in the Criminal Division, moving some cyber resources to the National Security Division, and merging all policy offices.
      • Justice Connection in Reuters: “Gutting DOJ and merging ATF and DEA weakens law enforcement’s ability to combat gun violence, the fentanyl epidemic, and generally keep American communities secure and healthy.”
  • March 27–28:
    • White House fires two longtime career prosecutors, one after Laura Loomer called for his termination.
      • Justice Connection in NBC News: “The White House firing career prosecutors for doing their jobs is likely unprecedented . . . . It’s also the very weaponization this administration pretends to oppose.”
      • Justice Connection in the Associated Press: “The integrity of our legal system and the independence of DOJ requires that laws are enforced impartially, which 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.”
  • April 6:
    • News breaks that DOJ considers closing the Community Relations Service, which is tasked with “preventing and resolving racial and ethnic tensions, conflicts, and civil disorders, and in restoring racial stability and harmony” under the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
  • April 7:
    • DOJ’s National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Unit is disbanded.
  • April 9:
    • FBI Director Patel is removed as ATF Director and replaced by Army Secretary Daniel Discroll; the same day, ATF Deputy Director Marvin Richardson is ousted.
    • DOJ prohibits its employees from participating in American Bar Association events.
  • 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:
    • FBI suspends an analyst who worked on the 2017 Russia investigation; the analyst had been named on Director Patel’s “enemies list.”
    • Longtime DOJ spokesperson Peter Carr is fired.
  • 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.”
  • April 15:
    • DOJ issues new policy threatening stiff penalties for employees who post anything related to work on social media.
      • Justice Connection in Reuters: “The Justice Department’s new social media policy represents another unwarranted attack on DOJ employees—one that stifles their free speech in their private lives and creates new ways for the administration to oust career public servants who don’t toe the party line. We’ll continue to speak out on social media and in the press as our former colleagues are unjustly censored.”
  • 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.  Dana Leigh Marks, a retired immigration judge, on behalf of Justice Connection: “Allowing DOGE access to the immigration courts’ records risks devastating consequences for millions of asylum seekers, victims of domestic violence, and unaccompanied minors. The Justice Department is required to follow strict confidentiality and privacy provisions contained in law for a reason—the release of sensitive information could endanger the lives of those who return to their homelands, as well as vulnerable people still in the United States.”
  • 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.
      • Justice Connection in NBC News: “Every presidential administration has its own policy priorities, but I don’t think there’s any precedent for an administration almost completely refocusing the civil rights division’s enforcement priorities the way this one has. The loss is truly hard to quantify. Vital civil rights work is not going to get done.”
  • April 22:
    • Three prosecutors in SDNY who worked on the Mayor Adams case resign after refusing to dismiss the case.
    • Attorney General Bondi issues memo directing criminal and civil investigations of providers involved in gender-affirming care.
    • At least eight immigration judges are fired.
  • April 23:
    • DOJ cancels hundreds of grants from the Office of Justice Programs to local governments and non-profits.
      • Justice Connection in CBS News: “This administration can’t claim to care about things like supporting crime victims, curbing gun violence, and reducing opioid deaths while slashing grants to entities that do the hard work to achieve these goals.”
  • 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.”
    • DOJ proposes providing legal services to families separated at the border during the first Trump administration as they navigate the immigration system. This comes after DOJ failed to renew a contract with the program that had previously provided legal assistance.
  • April 27:
    • Attorney General Bondi issues memo allowing subpoenas and compelled testimony of journalists in leak cases involving classified, privileged, or “other sensitive information.”
  • April 29:
    • Civil Rights Division dismisses a 50+ year school desegregation case in Louisiana.
  • Late April:
    • Approximately 70% of the Civil Rights Division leave or are reassigned.
      • Justice Connection in The Guardian: “They made a concerted effort to purge dedicated career civil servants at the civil rights division. And slamming them for leaving is cruel. I’ve never seen DOJ employees treated with the kind of malice from their own government, like we’re seeing now. They were involuntarily reassigned. They were told to take the deferred resignation offer. And it was suggested to them that if they didn’t, they could be laid off. So the message was clear: ‘If you’re not on board with what we’re doing, if you’re not on board with the president’s own policy agenda, get out.’”

May 

  • May 1:
    • DOJ allows federal investigators to use court orders, warrants, and subpoenas to obtain reporters’ records in leak investigations, reversing a ban put in place by Attorney General Merrick Garland following revelations that the first Trump administration had secretly pursued reporters’ email records. The new regulations also lift a ban on portraying reporters as criminal suspects to obtain secret search warrants for their materials.
    • DOGE refers dozens of voter fraud cases to DOJ.
  • May 2:
    • White House budget proposal recommends slashing DOJ budget by 8%, including a combined $1 billion of cuts to FBI and ATF and eliminating $1 billion in grants funding.
  • May 3:
    • News breaks of an internal memo directing the Civil Rights Division’s Voting Section to focus on investigating voter fraud instead of ensuring that Americans have access to the ballot, consistent with the section’s new mission statement.
    • Civil Rights Division head Harmeet Dhillon announces “pattern or practice” investigation into Hennepin County, Minnesota, after the county attorney’s office told staff to be “mindful” of racial disparities in plea negotiations.
  • May 5:
    • News breaks that DOJ’s Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces were told to shut down operations by Sept. 30.
  • May 8:
    • President Trump withdraws Ed Martin’s nomination for U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia and names Fox News host Jeannine Pirro to be Interim U.S. Attorney in D.C. Ed Martin is tapped to be the director of DOJ’s new“Weaponization Working Group,” and also the Pardon Attorney–replacing Liz Oyer, whom DOJ fired in March.
    • DOJ launches investigation into New York Attorney General Letitia James for alleged mortgage fraud.
  • May 9: 
    • FBI Director Kash Patel is reported to have cut down on the number of his morning intelligence briefings, raising concerns that he is not dedicated to the job.
      • Justice Connection in NBC News: “There’s a growing sense among the ranks that there’s a leadership void. And that the highest echelons of the bureau are more concerned about currying favor with the president, retribution and leaks than the actual work.”
    • Federal officials arrest and charge Newark Mayor Ras Baraka with federal trespassing charges after escorting congressional members to an ICE facility. When prosecutors subsequently dismissed the charges, the judge chastised them—saying, “Your role is not to secure convictions at all costs, nor to satisfy public clamor, nor to advance political agendas. Your allegiance is to the impartial application of the law, to the pursuit of truth and to the upholding of due process for all.”
  • May 12: 
    • FBI orders field offices to scale back white-collar investigations to devote one-third of their time on immigration enforcement. 
    • Criminal Division head Matthew Galeotti orders the division to cut back on white-collar investigations, particularly into corporate misconduct. Prosecutors are told to limit the use of independent monitors in corporate compliance agreements. 
    • President Trump appoints Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche to be Acting Librarian of Congress. Two other senior DOJ officials are named to top positions within the Library of Congress. 
    • Attorney General Pam Bondi and the Office of Legal Counsel reportedly approve President Trump’s acceptance of a Qatari jet.
    • DOJ requests “all records” related to the 2024 and 2020 federal elections from Colorado in an unprecedented records request.
  • May 14: 
    • News breaks that DOJ officials asked civil rights attorneys to stay after hundreds indicate their intention to leave. 
      • Justice Connection in The Guardian: “In addition to treating the civil rights division staff with complete disrespect, they’re also utterly incompetent. They drove people out and only after the fact seem to have realized that that was a terrible idea.”
    •  Mass exodus at the Civil Rights Division puts the enforcement of the Emmet Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act in jeopardy. 
      • Justice Connection in Marshall Project: “The division is now focusing on protecting the people who this White House prefers. Their new enforcement priorities, which they’ve made very clear, are trying to tamp down on antisemitism, on anti-Christian bias and on efforts to advance gun control.”
    • Pardon Attorney Ed Martin indicates he will review President Biden’s outgoing pardons. 
    • Weaponization working group director Ed Martin says he will name and shame individuals when there is not enough evidence to prove guilt. 
      • Justice Connection on MSNBC: “Ed Martin is weaponizing the institution he was ostensibly hired to de-weaponize.”
    • News breaks that 45% of agents in 25 FBI field offices will be reassigned to work on immigration full time.
    • A federal judge blocks DOJ’s cancellation of ABA grants, saying the action was retaliatory.
  • May 15:
    • News breaks that Attorney General Pam Bondi sold $1 million in Trump Media stocks the same day that President Trump announced large scale tariffs. Bondi sold the shares before the price dropped more than 10%.
    • Solicitor General John Sauer says in oral argument before the Supreme Court that the federal government does not necessarily have to respect court orders “in every case.”
  • May 16:
    • DOJ ends ban of forced-reset triggers, allowing semiautomatic weapons to fire more rapidly.
  • May 18: 
    • DOJ considers allowing prosecutors to indict members of Congress without approval from the Public Integrity Section, removing a key check that ensures investigations are not politically motivated.
  • May 19: 
    • DOJ charges Congresswoman LaMonica McIver with assault following a clash between immigration officers and a congressional delegation outside an ICE detention center in New Jersey.
    • News breaks that DOJ will use the False Claims Act to pressure institutions to abandon DEI efforts. 
    • DOJ opens an investigation into Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson after he touted the diversity of his administration.
      • Justice Connection in the Chicago Tribune: “Targeting employers for DEIA initiatives isn’t something that’s contemplated by Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act or the precedent that has evolved interpreting that statute. It’s a political stunt, and they’ve weaponized the Civil Rights Division to advance it.”
    • President Trump calls for a probe into Vice President Kamala Harris’s celebrity endorsements during the 2024 campaign.
  • May 20: 
    • FBI closes the Office of Internal Auditing, an internal watchdog office that checks the use of surveillance under FISA.
    • DOJ opens an investigation into New York City mayoral candidate Andrew Cuomo for statements he made to Congress about the COVID-19 pandemic while he was governor.
  • May 21:
    • DOJ ends pattern or practice investigations into Minneapolis and Louisville police departments.
  • May 22:
    • DOJ sues four New Jersey cities over their sanctuary policies, accusing them of impeding immigration enforcement.
  • May 28: 
    • President Trump nominates Emil Bove–who directed the firing of January 6 prosecutors and whose actions resulted in resignations from SDNY and the Public Integrity Section after DOJ’s decision to withdraw its prosecution of Mayor Adams– to a lifetime seat on the Third Circuit Court of Appeals.
    • DOJ investigates California over a law allowing transgender student athletes to compete.
    • President Trump pardoned or commuted the sentences of dozens of individuals, many with connections to the White House and/or convicted of public corruption.
      • Justice Connection in NBC: “It’s clear that this administration doesn’t believe that tamping down on public corruption is a priority. Pardoning a sheriff who took cash for deputy badges is just the latest in a string of actions this president has taken to undermine any effort to hold officials accountable to the public they are sworn to serve.”
  • May 29: 
    • DOJ revokes ABA access to vet judicial nominees.
  • May 31: 
    • News breaks that DOJ is criminally charging migrants for failing to register with the government. According to reports, “judges chided prosecutors for relying on a statute that has not been widely enforced in more than half a century to target people who until just weeks ago had no way to comply.”
  • Late May: 
    • FBI forces out three senior agents who associated with critics of the president or wrote memos and policies that the administration disapproved of.

June 

  • June 1:
    • Chief of the DOJ Capitol Siege Section resigns, decrying President Trump’s Jan. 6 pardons.
  • June 2:
    • FBI solicits tips on health care providers that provide gender-affirming care to minors.
  • June 3: 
    • DOJ dismisses records lawsuit against Trump advisor Peter Navarro.
    • The White House confirms that DOJ is investigating President Biden’s last minute pardons.
  • June 4: 
    • DOJ sues Texas to block a state policy allowing undocumented residents to pay in-state tuition. 
    • DOJ issues a warning to the Wisconsin Election Board over an alleged violation of election law and threatens to cut off funding.
  • June 5: 
    • President Trump orders DOJ to investigate whether President Biden’s administration conspired to cover up his mental state in office.
    • News breaks that three senior FBI officials are ousted for reasons seemingly related to political retribution; after leaving, one denounced the Bureau as being an organization “in decay.”
  • June 6: 
    • News breaks that the White House budget request proposes folding the Office of Violence Against Women into the Office of Justice Programs, potentially reducing transparency.
    • News breaks that DOJ filed charges in Nashville against Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, the man who was erroneously deported to a prison in El Salvador. There are reports that decision to pursue the charges led to the abrupt departure of a high-ranking DOJ prosecutor in Nashville.
  • June 9: 
    • News breaks that DOJ’s anti-bribery unit of the Fraud Section has shrunk to half its pre-Trump administration size.
  • June 10:
    • Rep. LaMonica McIver is indicted in federal court on three counts of “forcibly impeding and interfering with federal law enforcement officers” from her and other lawmakers’ confrontation with ICE agents.
  • June 11:
    • News breaks that attorneys who were reassigned to the Sanctuary Cities Enforcement Working Group have not been assigned substantive work, and the working group appears to exist only to sideline career leaders at DOJ into “forced idleness.”
  • June 12:
    • DOJ leadership orders U.S. Attorneys Offices to prioritize cases stemming from protests ahead of nationwide No Kings protest.
    • DOJ sues New York over a state law that restricts immigration enforcement around state and local courthouses.
    • Sen. Alex Padilla (D-CA) is forcibly removed by FBI agents from a press conference held by DHS Secretary Kristi Noem.