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.
Thank you all for your ongoing work for justice. There is no compassionate work that does not include accountability, and work for justice.
NV Sec of State and others concerned about election subversion see below
What A Day: FBI Just Wants to Chat About the Midterms
The FBI just reached out to all 50 states about the midterms… without saying why.
MATT BERG
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MIDTERM MANIA
Trump’s FBI summoned state election officials from across the country for an unusual briefing on “preparations” for the midterms, What A Day has learned. At least one top state official is deeply concerned.
• The FBI is organizing a mysterious conference call in late February for local election officials from all 50 states to discuss plans for the midterm elections with federal law enforcement agencies, according to an email obtained by What A Day. The exact purpose of the call remains unclear. But it’s raising concerns after President Donald Trump called for state elections to be nationalized.
• Election officials from every state received an invitation for the call on Feb. 25th, to be joined by Trump’s FBI, Department of Justice, Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Postal Inspection Service and U.S. Election Assistance Commission. The email, which was obtained via public records request, was sent on Tuesday by an official named Kellie Hardiman, who gave her title as “FBI Election Executive.”
• Hardiman wrote that the FBI and other federal agencies “would like to invite you to a call where we can discuss our preparations for the cycle, as well as updates and resources we can provide to you and your staff.” She added: “We look forward to speaking with you in support of the 2026 midterm elections.”
• I asked the FBI for an explanation, but a spokesperson wouldn’t give me one, writing: “Thank you for reaching out. The FBI has no comment.”
• The email is raising anxiety at a moment when Trump is calling for the federal government to take control of elections in 15 states, and dispatching the FBI to investigate the 2020 election in battleground state Georgia.
Nevada’s top election official called the email bizarre — and said he suspects it’s all about intimidation.
• Nevada Secretary of State Cisco Aguilar told What A Day he’s never heard of a conference call like this being organized by the FBI between state officials and federal agencies. After he received the email, he wrote back to Hardiman an hour later: “Is this real? Given what’s occurred over the last two weeks I am concerned.”
• “I was just like, ‘what is this?’ It’s the strangest thing in the world that the FBI is reaching out to us and trying to coordinate election security,” Aguilar told me on a phone call this afternoon. “It’s never happened in the past. The casualness which they did… it was just beyond crazy.” He added: “They’re just sowing this confusion and chaos to try to intimidate us into compliance.”
• While DOJ does monitor elections during normal times, the email and conference call are unusual, a former DOJ official from the department’s civil division told What A Day. “I can’t imagine why it would be coordinated in that way,” the former official said.
• The FBI recently raided an election hub in Georgia, dispatching spy chief Tulsi Gabbard to tag along, supposedly on the evidence-free theory that there may have been some kind of foreign meddling by China. Intelligence officials reportedly investigated voting machines in Puerto Rico last year, too. MAGA Godfather Steve Bannon is calling for ICE agents to “surround the polls” during the midterm elections in November.
• States are taking these threats extremely seriously. Nevada officials are “constantly preparing and strategizing” for whatever Trump’s team may attempt, Aguilar said. That includes monitoring statements from people like Bannon, even though the former Trump advisor has no formal power.
• “It’s unconstitutional for the president to do what he wants to do,” Aguilar said. “We understand that what he’s trying to do is really disrupt the midterm election, because the ‘26 election is critical to the ‘28 election.”
Nevada is gearing up for a legal fight — if it needs to have one. “We have to prepare for that litigation at a moment’s notice, and we will be prepared in Nevada to push back,” Aguilar said.
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