DOJ Seeks Rapid Lawyer Transfers to Defend Trump Agenda in Court

The Justice Department is pressing its lawyers to take immediate transfers to the division getting deluged defending Trump policies from lawsuits.

DOJ tax and civil rights attorneys are among those receiving messages from their bosses in recent days encouraging them to apply for temporary details to the civil division units responsible for protecting the president’s agenda, according to emails reviewed by Bloomberg Law.

The outreach includes three different tax division leaders amplifying the opportunities in under 24 hours. It reflects a staffing urgency at a time when DOJ attorneys have struggled to justify the legality of Trump’s torrent of executive actions. Judges have disparaged department lawyers attempting to defend the administration’s birthright citizenship order, ban on transgender troops, and empowerment of Elon Musk’s government efficiency team.

“This opportunity is an important priority for DOJ leadership and has the full support of the Tax Division,” one senior career official wrote in an email. The messages noted that the transfers would take effect as soon as March 9.

Vacancies in these roles traditionally are considered very competitive, often attracting Ivy League law school alums. Yet officials are signaling that in the current climate, DOJ might consider transfers for less-experienced candidates that wouldn’t normally be eligible for the jobs.

“It is my understanding that they need a large number of attorneys to assist with this effort,” a civil rights division official email said. “The Division may be willing to waive the minimum 3-year division seniority required for details.”

The Justice Department said in a statement that Trump’s immigration enforcement agenda is a national security priority the agency is “prepared to vigorously defend” when challenged in court.

Bondi Memo

The hiring surge, which is also open to external candidates under an exemption to Trump’s government-wide hiring freeze, comes as Attorney General Pam Bondi issued a Day One memo threatening to discipline or terminate attorneys who won’t zealously advocate for Trump’s policy desires. She referred to them as the president’s lawyers.

The memo and other Trump DOJ actions eroding career employee job protections have created an environment that’s caused many attorneys inside and outside the department to react with derision to openings for typically highly-coveted legal posts.

Several lawyers, speaking on condition of anonymity to offer candor, said there is no desire to advance arguments supporting what they called illegal White House directives.

“What you’re probably seeing is some sort of phenomenon where they’re somewhat desperate for people,” said Dennis Fan, who directs Columbia Law School’s appellate litigation clinic and previously joined the Trump-era DOJ in 2017 as a civil appellate lawyer. “This administration has been pretty clear that they have a different view of how willing career lawyers should be to carry out its priorities.”

Fan also noted significant attrition of civil division lawyers since Trump won the election, which he expected is partially driving the requests for temporary staff.

Outsized Responsibilities

The department has been recruiting lawyers into three civil litigating sections—federal programs, appellate, and immigration litigation. All have outsized responsibilities in any president’s executive branch, but face particularly heavy lifts from Trump policies.

Federal programs branch lawyers represent the president and federal agencies when their policies or regulations are challenged in trial court. The appellate staff handle the same cases on appeal and help draft Supreme Court filings.

The immigration office recruitment is for a national security focused team that would potentially be tasked with defending the administration’s transfer of migrants to Guantanamo Bay.

It is unclear how much interest there will be from other parts of DOJ or in the private sector to fill these positions, especially following tense exchanges between the bench and DOJ lawyers that made headlines over the past month.

The career workforce at DOJ’s tax and civil rights divisions, along with other parts of the department, has already seen its work treated as expendable. The administration forced out multiple veteran supervisors of both offices.

The White House has also offered all civil servants voluntary deferred resignations and collected lists of probationary employees who’d be easier to fire.

Brett Shumate, Trump’s nominee to head the civil division, earlier this month promoted the same job openings on LinkedIn and shared links to apply on USAJOBS.gov.

While his message has garnered more than 200 likes, comments were littered with disdain from those objecting to the nature of Trump DOJ civil defense work.