Trump's DOJ is unraveling as massive exodus exposes a larger crisis

The Justice Department has been cut in half in President Donald Trump's first year in office, which explains why a growing crisis is unfolding.

The New Republic's Ellie Quinlan Houghtaling sounded the alarm that an exodus of DOJ layers and staff has caused a "huge backlog in work."

Independent journalist Scott MacFarlane recently uncovered a civil lawsuit in which a lawyer with the DOJ revealed, “the Appellate Section has lost over 40 percent of its attorneys since February 2025, due to retirement, resignation, or temporary transfer.”

“Therefore, at this time, it is not possible for me to assign this case to yet another attorney, who would need to devote time to learning the issues,” the attorney wrote in a filing which was dated February 19.

The Appellate Division is only part of the DOJ, however.

That wasn't the first cry for help from the department's staff that month. A few weeks prior, a Homeland Security lawyer was volunteering with the Minnesota prosecutor's office to help with ICE-related cases. At one point, the judge reprimanded her and threatened to hold her in contempt. The lawyer confessed she'd be grateful so she could "get 24 hours of sleep." She was suspended.

The Appellate lawyers are only part of the problem. The Office of Attorney Recruitment and Management for the Justice Department said on its website that the office employs "more than 10,000 attorneys nationwide." The advocacy group Justice Connection tracked that around 5,500 people have left the DOJ by Sept. 2025, either by choice, accepting a buyout, or being fired. Not all of those were attorneys, however.

The New Republic said that a mere fraction of those have been replaced. It's causing a backlog in work. Staffing shortages are only part of the backlog problem. Trump's mass deportation program is moving lawyers off of typical prosecutions to deal with immigration courts. It had already been under pressure, but Trump's policies resulted in a backlog of more than 3.3 million cases as of the end of Feb. 2026, said the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse. Those are only the immigration cases.

Meanwhile, the DOJ also has Trump's personal list of targets.

When he ran for office in 2024, Trump promised "retribution" and "revenge" against his political enemies and his DOJ has made good on that pledge, indicting New York Attorney General Letitia James, former FBI Director James Comey, twice, the Southern Poverty Law Center, journalist Don Lemon, activists who protested at a Minnesota church, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, Democratic congressional candidate Kat Abughazaleh, former Trump National Security Advisor John Bolton, former Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook, Rep. LaMonica McIver (D-N.J.) and Judge Hannah Dugan.

Those are the individuals who have already faced indictments. There are many more who are under investigation or they were detained and ultimately released without charges. There is also a small list of people included in a formal Executive Order demanding the investigation of former aides who turned on him during the first administration, according to Protect Democracy's list of retaliatory arrests, prosecutions, and investigations by the Trump Justice Department.

The attorney general is considered the chief law enforcement officer of the United States, and Trump's "tough on crime" agenda pledges to lower crime, but without enough people to prosecute these crimes, it can mean justice delayed.

Reuters obtained records through a Freedom of Information Act request showing that about 4,000 federal law enforcement employees have been cut.

The FBI has lost 7 percent of its staff, 2,600 in all. The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) has lost about 6 percent of its employees. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) has lost 14 percent of its employees thus far.

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