Trump’s DOJ pushed us out. We fought back.
Refusing to be a bystander to the unmaking of justice in America.
By Stacey Young
Since the inauguration, the Department of Justice has been gutted, with 6,400 career employees leaving, hundreds of whom were outright fired by the Trump administration. Many of these dedicated civil servants refused to put loyalty to the President over the Constitution, the rule of law, and their professional ethical obligations.
Attorney General Pam Bondi declared her intention to destroy DOJ’s traditional independence on her first day in office, when she issued a memo directing that DOJ lawyers were the President’s lawyers. Since Watergate, Attorney Generals have consistently promoted policies and practices that protect the Department’s enforcement decisions from partisan influences—whether real or perceived, direct or indirect—allowing the Department to pursue justice without fear or favor.
Attorney General Bondi broke that tradition. Bondi has made no secret that her orders come directly from the President himself. Her leadership team has been driven by politics and advocacy, often memorialized in executive orders he signs, instead of the law or Constitution.
Over the past year, career attorneys, agents and other public servants at the Department have been asked to carry out orders that have no basis in the law or precedent—in some instances that made headlines, and many more that didn’t. Countless public servants across DOJ have been caught in the crosshairs, faced with the choice to resign, be fired, or comply with orders that violate their consciences.
The unprecedented reduction of DOJ’s career workforce will have lasting consequences on how our safety, prosperity, and rights are protected in the United States. The Department and we as a country are losing generations of institutional knowledge, destabilizing the offices they left behind.
Because DOJ jobs have become far less desirable, the Department is struggling to attract qualified applicants to backfill vacancies. DOJ’s mission-critical work is also suffering because agents and attorneys have been reassigned to immigration matters or other administration priorities, pulling them away from their normal, otherwise full case loads.
In the wake of all this, many of us ex-DOJ career employees came together to form Justice Connection, a new network of Justice Department alumni mobilizing to protect the agency’s employees, the institution, and the rule of law. At the core of this effort is our shared belief that supporting an independent civil service corps is vital to protecting our democracy, and nowhere is that more critical than at the Justice Department. Anti-democratic forces classically take over and corrupt governments’ law enforcement arms. Fighting for our democracy means fighting back against such corruption.
We are now seeing the results of the decay of seasoned, neutral advocacy at the Justice Department. Judges no longer believe what government lawyers tell them in court, suggesting that the trust that has been earned over generations has been lost in mere months. Grand juries throughout the country have rebuffed federal prosecutors in historic fashion. In 2016, for example, only six cases nationwide were dropped because a grand jury refused to indict. In Washington DC alone, grand juries rejected eight in one month.
When judges and jurors cannot trust that the government is telling them the truth, or that federal agents have acted within the bounds of their duties and the law, that erodes public trust in law enforcement—and that trust is the only way to truly promote justice and public safety. Right now, Americans’ safety, prosperity, and rights depend on an institution that’s been compromised.
But despite this administration’s assault on the Department and its workforce, tens of thousands of dedicated public servants remain, and they’re fighting to hold the line. Many of us who once held those jobs can’t stand by and do nothing.
We need responsible career employees standing strong at DOJ, and it’s crucial that Department alumni and everyone seeking to resist the slide into authoritarianism demonstrate that we have those public servants’ backs. As Justice Connection says in its recent video, now is the time to speak up for Justice. We encourage all Americans to join us, before it’s too late.
Stacey Young was an 18-year DOJ veteran who worked at the Justice Department until she resigned to launch Justice Connection in January 2025.
Powerful to see career DOJ folks refusing to compromise their ethical obligations despite enormous pressure. The founding of Justice Connection feels particularly timly given how institutional trust erodes when enforcement becomes politicized. The grand jury statistics are staggering proof of how quickly credibility can collapse. Reminds me of similar dynamics I've observed in other insitutions where independence gets compromised.
Thank you all for your ongoing work for justice. There is no compassionate work that does not include accountability, and work for justice.