https://www.thedailybeast.com/doj-hiring-in-freefall-as-applicants-flunk-the-favorite-trump-policy-test/
A new loyalty test for prospective hires has left the Justice Department with thousands of vacancies and a mounting case backlog.
Trumps DOJ has experienced a sharp decline in applicantsespecially qualified onesin large part because of the partisan hiring process,
The Washington Post
reported on Monday.
As part of the vetting process, Justice Department applicants have been required to gush over their favorite Trump executive order or policy and detail how they would move it forward, the Post reported.
Career positions like those at the DOJ are designed to be nonpoliticalbut experts described this question as a workaround.
Even though that question doesnt ask if you are Republican, the spirit of that question asks for the job applicant to give their loyalty to the president, Raymond Limon, an expert in federal labor laws, told the Post.
Trump appointees have also found other ways to align the DOJ with MAGA. In February, Ed Martinwho was then the acting top prosecutor in D.C.wrote a letter to William Treanor, the former dean of Georgetown University Law Center, declaring his office wouldnt hire any talent from a law school that had what Trump officials viewed as DEI policies, the Post reported.
But the politicizing of the Justice Department, a once-prestigious employer, hasnt exactly boosted applicants. The vast majority of the 600 employees in the Civil Rights Division, for example, have left, with only a dozen or so of those career positions replaced, the Post reported.
Still, that hasnt stopped Trump officials from ousting at least 200 people in the DOJ who worked on cases seen as anti-Trump under the Biden administration and are now installing their allies in their place, according to data from Justice Connection. Among those especially targeted are lawyers involved in cases against Jan. 6 rioters and immigration judges.
Now, prospective hires at the DOJ are mostly coming from Republican congressional offices and advocacy groups, sources told the Post
.
Other candidates are far from qualified for the roles theyre seeking, they added.
In August, Jeanine Pirro, now the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, even appeared on her former employer Fox News as her office was down 90 prosecutors, and pleaded with viewers to email her if they wanted a job.
What we are seeing is a total drop in who is applying, Treanor told
the Post.
Its gone from a good amount of our graduating class to virtually no one applying for jobs at the Justice Department.
Additionally, roughly two thirds of DOJ lawyers tasked with fielding the constant legal challenges to Trumps policies have quit amid mounting frustration. Around 69 of the 110 lawyers who work in the DOJs Federal Programs Branchwhich responds to lawsuits against the administrationhave left their posts since the 2024 election,
Reuters
reported in July.
The brain drain from this is going to hurt even if Trump is removed from power. This also likely isn't legal as they are intentionally trying to work around law, but even if a court ruled otherwise we have seen that Trump admin will ignore court orders and push things to SCOTUS to get favorable rulings.