Donald Trump’s own Justice Department attorneys have reportedly found themselves struggling to defend the president’s “blitz” of unhinged executive orders before “frustrated” judges after nearly all of them were almost immediately challenged in court.
According to a damning new report from the Wall Street Journal, both old and new Trump DOJ lawyers have found themselves struggling to make their cases on behalf of the new presidential administration when it comes to defending the insane and extreme demands and changes coming out of the Oval Office these days. The report notes that their struggles appear to come down to a resounding lack of preparation or, in many cases, a basic lack of a legal leg to stand on, as much of the orders being handed down by Trump are resoundingly unsupportable and extremely poorly researched — leaving DOJ attorneys holding the bag.
The Journal reports that “uncomfortable” exchanges between Justice Department attorneys and skeptical judges have become the norm since Trump’s return to office, citing an exchange between an administration attorney and a judge just last week, during which the lawyer had no choice but to admit, “Your honor, I don’t have the answer to that precise question off the top of my head.”
The judge reportedly responded, “OK, but that strikes me as a pretty important question.”
WSJ’s Josh Dawsey, C. Ryan Barber, and Jacob Gershman report, “During fast-moving proceedings, DOJ lawyers at times have struggled on questions of law and fact about what Trump and his lieutenants are actually doing, drawing frustration and rebukes from judges across the country. In some cases, lawyers later submitted corrections to what they have told the courts.”
The report cites one such case, in which a Trump DOJ attorney told a judge “that 500 employees at USAID had been put on leave and that a Trump-ordered pause on foreign-aid spending froze only future contract obligations. In fact, more than 2,100 employees had been placed on administrative leave, and both existing and future contracts were frozen.”
The onslaught of errors like this one has served to make it more and more less likely that a favorable ruling for Trump is in the cards.
The report goes on to note that the sheer number of executive orders coming out of the Oval Office is only serving to make DOJ attorneys’ jobs that much harder, as the onslaught of incessant demands makes it nearly impossible to concoct an ironclad defense to bring before the court.
“Recent rebukes from judges have upset DOJ lawyers who privately say they have been given incorrect information by agencies and asked to defend executive orders they wouldn’t have crafted, according to people familiar with the matter,” the report reads. “Within the civil division, lawyers have grown frustrated with being forced into difficult litigating positions, the people said, and some expressed discomfort about joining the defense of Trump’s executive order aimed at limiting birthright citizenship.”
You can read the full report from the Wall Street Journal here.
Featured image via Flickr/Gage Skidmore, under Creative Commons license 2.0