Trump's circular "lawfare": Justice Department targets its own lawyers for following the law

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Trump’s circular “lawfare”: Justice Department targets its own lawyers for following the law
When orders and ethics collide, our judicial system frays

By Jesselyn Radack
Contributing Writer
Published April 8, 2025 5:45AM (EDT)


(Salon) As a former Justice Department (DOJ) ethics attorney, I was ousted for saying no to something questionable the government wanted to do, namely a harsh interrogation of an American captured in Afghanistan after 9/11 without his counsel present. So it is distressing to now read that the department has placed one of its top immigration lawyers on leave for failing to follow questionable orders.

The apparent infraction of the senior career attorney, Erez Reuveni, is that he truthfully conceded in court that the transfer of a Maryland man to an El Salvadoran gulag — despite a court order allowing the man to stay in the U.S. — was erroneous. Reuvani is among several recent high-level career officials who’ve suffered adverse personnel actions, including termination, for refusing to comply with a directive from Trump or his team to take an action the DOJ official determines to be illegal, unethical or both.

There are over 44,000 lawyers employed by the federal government, in every branch and at every level. Case law, statutes, and legal scholarship have long recognized that government attorneys have ethical obligations in addition to those placed on other lawyers. Additionally, although part of the executive branch, the Justice Department has long held the laudable, however imperfect, distinction of being independent. While there is no explicit codification of this independence, it is grounded in prosecutors’ use of institutional norms, internal DOJ regulations, and professional responsibility rules to maintain autonomy and impartiality. Todd Blanche, President Trump’s former criminal defense lawyer turned Deputy United States Attorney General (AG), accused Reuveni of “engaging in conduct prejudicial to your client.” This begs the question of whose interest the government lawyer serves: his or her section supervisor, branch chief, division head, the agency itself, its statutory mission, the government writ large, the people as a whole, the public interest, or some combination thereof.

The problem with President Trump is that he has a different view of government lawyers’ obligations altogether: they are his personal attorneys. A prime example is Trump’s nominee for U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, Ed Martin, whose confirmation was just put on hold by a Congressman because Martin “consistently undermined the independence and abused the power of the US Attorney’s office.” Specifically, Martin, who was a proponent of “Stop the Steal,” openly threatened and intimidated political rivals, dismissed charges against criminal defendants he was still representing, fired public servants for their roles in legitimate investigations, used his office to crack down on dissent and free speech and made a number of controversial statements and decisions. On top of that, he has little prosecutorial experience, especially in running DC’s office, which is unique in the size and scope of its work because it serves as both the local and the federal prosecutor of the nation’s capital. ....................(more)

https://www.salon.com/2025/04/08/trumps-circular-lawfare-justice-department-targets-its-own-lawyers-for-following-the-law/