Justice Department Attorneys Warned About Resisting Trump Administration

WASHINGTON — Justice Department attorneys are preparing for the possibility of widespread job terminations and resignations after a warning this week from the transition team for the incoming Trump administration.

They were told they could be fired unless they comply with Trump administration policy.

The warning came in a post on X from Mark Paoletta, an attorney who leads part of the transition team that deals with the Justice Department.

“If these career DOJ employees won’t implement President Trump’s program in good faith, they should leave,” Paoletta wrote. “Those employees who engage in so-called ‘resistance’ against the duly elected president’s lawful agenda would be subverting American democracy.”

He posted the warning in response to a Politico news story saying many Justice Department career attorneys are worried about what a second presidential term for Trump might mean for their agency and administration of the laws.

If they resist Trump’s policies, “Those that take such actions would be subject to disciplinary measures, including termination,” Paoletta wrote.

His warning was joined by Cleta Mitchell, a Republican election reform advocate and sometimes attorney adviser to Trump.

She posted a message on X saying, “Every lawyer in the Voting Section [of the Justice Department] and likely in the Civil Rights Division needs to be terminated. They are not supportive of Pres Trump or MAGA. There has to be a reckoning. These are leftwing activists who have come from and should return to their leftwing organizations.”

Some of the Justice Department’s 115,000 employees say they do not plan to stick around for the likelihood of bad news about their careers when Trump is inaugurated.

One of them is special prosecutor Jack Smith, who oversees the election interference case against Trump. The New York Times reported Wednesday that he will leave his job before Trump is sworn in as president.

The president-elect has said he thought Smith should be prosecuted.

Other Justice Department attorneys in the civil rights and environmental law sections are seeking union representation. They have been negotiating for weeks with the National Treasury Employees Union.

The union has filed petitions with the Federal Labor Relations Authority to submit unionization to a vote by hundreds of Justice Department attorneys.

They face a daunting task to retain their good standing if Trump carries through on his pledge to revive his October 2020 “Schedule F” executive order.

If he had not lost the election, it would have eliminated most job protections of civil servants perceived as disloyal to the president. It invokes authority from a statute previously used only for a small number of political appointees in policy-making positions.

During his first term, Trump often disagreed with the Justice Department, particularly when officials from his administration were accused of wrongdoing.

In one example, Trump fired Jeff Sessions, his first attorney general, after he refused to halt an investigation into alleged Russian influence in his 2016 presidential campaign.

The political pressure exerted by Trump over the investigation and other prosecutorial decisions drew protests from Justice Department attorneys.

A team of prosecutors overseeing the case against Trump campaign adviser Roger Stone resigned in 2020 when they said they were being pressured to reduce their sentencing recommendation. Stone was indicted for lying to investigators and obstruction of justice in the Russia investigation.

Government attorneys complained they also were pressured during their prosecutions of former national security adviser Michael Flynn and former Trump attorney Rudolph Giuliani.

You can reach us at [email protected] and follow us on Facebook and X