After US Justice Department lawyers
This week, lawyers for the migrant aid groups told the judge they plan to seek sanctions against the government and the court’s permission to gather evidence about what happened.
The misstep was among several divulged by the Justice Department in March alone. A government attorney also alerted a Rhode Island court of inaccurate statements made during a hearing about the administration’s demands for state voter records. Another department lawyer apologized to a federal judge in Washington state for missing a key deadline due to “unfamiliarity” with local procedures.
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While many Trump administration legal fights proceed without incident, the recent revelations of inaccuracies and errors stand out amid growing judicial mistrust and fallout from President Donald Trump’s reshaping of the Justice Department to align with his agenda. Mass firings and resignations have left offices understaffed and missing expertise from veteran career lawyers. Some former employees say new policies have discouraged attorneys from challenging the accuracy of information they get from agencies.
Judges rely on a principle known as the “presumption of regularity” — trust that the government is sharing accurate information and acting in good faith, said
Pro said it was “rare” in his decades on the bench to see the Justice Department, which represents the federal government in court, come back with substantive corrections of what they had presented. He is now a member of the Article III Coalition, a network of retired US judges created last year “to speak about the separation of powers and the importance of an independent judiciary.”
The Justice Department lost approximately a quarter of its attorneys in 2025, including hundreds in leadership positions, according to a new report analyzing Office of Personnel Management data shared by Justice Connection, an organization created last year to support former department employees that has been critical of the administration.
The challenge of managing an ever-expanding universe of litigation with a smaller, less experienced workforce has
Blanche, who previously served as Trump’s personal defense lawyer, recently cheered the firing of FBI agents involved in past investigations into Trump’s conduct and denounced “rogue” and “activist” judges who rule against the government.
In the immigration case in Manhattan, the government had argued for months that a 2025 memo from
“This regrettable error appears to have occurred because of agency attorney error,” the lawyers wrote. The judge’s order directed the US attorney’s office in Manhattan to preserve internal communications on the case as well as to inform ICE officials to do the same.
A Justice Department spokesperson did not respond to requests for comment.
During the past year, multiple judges have issued opinions with strong language denouncing administration actions as unlawful and calling out violations of court orders. The Justice Department has clashed with judges over leadership of US attorney offices around the country, with one New Jersey judge
Justice Department lawyers, like all licensed attorneys, are bound by ethics rules requiring truthfulness in court. Penalties for sharing wrong information or failing to follow rules can depend on how much the issue affects the merits of a case and whether there’s evidence of intent to mislead.
Judges can compel attorneys or agency officials to testify or disclose records, a process that can reveal embarrassing or damaging information. They can strike information from the record, rule against the government or direct the administration to pay its opponents’ legal fees as sanctions.
Lawyers can face ethics investigations if there’s a suspicion that they knowingly presented false information. The department is facing criticism for a proposed regulation that would let the attorney general seek to suspend state bar investigations into the conduct of its attorneys.
“It’s just extraordinarily unusual to see these kinds of corrections and misrepresentations coming from DOJ, and I think it’s because lawyers are really stretched thin right now,” said Stacey Young, a former senior attorney at the Justice Department and executive director of Justice Connection, the network of ex-department attorneys.
The “presumption of regularity” has been replaced with “profound skepticism,” Young said.
Some lawyers are wary of pressing agency officials about the accuracy of information they received because of a February 2025 memo from Bondi directing them to “vigorously” defend Trump’s policies and referring to them as “his’’ counsel, according to a former Justice Department attorney who requested anonymity to discuss internal matters.
The attorney said that judges generally have been sensitive to the challenges facing career lawyers, and are trying to balance holding the administration accountable for accuracy while not dissuading attorneys from reporting issues and mistakes.
A number of cases brought against or by the Trump administration have unfolded rapidly to match the fast pace of controversial actions. Some Justice Department lawyers have taken the unusual step of publicly noting the strain in asking judges to extend deadlines.
A Massachusetts judge is deciding whether to let the Justice Department “correct” the record in an immigration case by adding documents that weren’t originally included. A Department of Homeland Security official filed a declaration blaming the omissions on their “haste” to collect information. Government lawyers disputed that misconduct was involved.
Last year, Justice Department lawyers struggled at times to deliver accurate information in court about the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, as the Elon Musk-led project swiftly carried out firings and funding cuts at agencies.
In January, Justice Department lawyers filed a “corrections” notice alerting a Maryland judge that the Social Security Administration had uncovered new information about the scope of DOGE’s access to Americans’ personal information and DOGE team members’ contacts with an unidentified “political advocacy group.”
Some of the government’s moves to “correct” or “clarify” have encountered pushback from opponents. Lawyers for the New York Times accused the Justice Department last month of trying to use a “clarification” to walk back a “case-ending concession” in a dispute over the Pentagon’s media access policy. The judge wrote that the issue didn’t end up factoring in his ruling against the government, however.
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Sara Forden
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