Welcome back to our Substack series to help you stay informed and engaged in protecting the Justice Department. Each month, we pull highlights from Justice Connection’s DOJ Tracker to offer a more digestible way to keep up with the latest attacks.

Here’s what happened in August.

Oversight and Transparency Updates

Since the beginning of this administration, top DOJ officials have cracked down on avenues for employees to report abuses. Reuters reported in August that nearly half of the Office of Professional Responsibility has left, and that the Office of Inspector General shrank by 17%. Many took the deferred resignation offer early in the administration or retired. In FY 2025, OPR received 1,666 complaints — the highest since 2005 — and opened the fewest number of investigations in those 20 years.

August also saw new leadership in the Inspector General’s Office with the confirmation of Don Berthiaume. Berthiaume is a veteran government watchdog who served as a career investigative counsel in OIG from 2010 to 2020 and Acting Inspector General from October 2025 to January 2026, among other roles. During his time as Acting IG, the office has been criticized for ignoring complaints against political appointees. On his first day in office as the permanent IG, Berthiaume issued a memo directing his staff to conduct oversight “without regard to political, reputation, or institutional consequences,” but stressed that the office’s independence is restricted by statute, and that OIG and cannot “substitute its judgment for that of Department officials” on policy matters.

At the FBI, Director Patel ordered the Office of General Counsel to cut its staff by about 25%. OGC employs hundreds of lawyers to advise FBI leaders on the legality of investigative steps, respond to lawsuits against the FBI, and coordinate with DOJ prosecutors on cases. As a retired FBI supervisory special agent told Bloomberg, OGC is “vital in making sure that the agents conducting investigations were always within the guidelines.” Yet in recent months, Patel has worked to sideline the FBI’s legal staff as he directs investigations into the president’s enemies.

Government transparency also took a hit in August. The Office of Legal Counsel issued a memo allowing the White House to extend executive privilege to the president’s personal lawyers involved in specific matters. This will likely impact the American Bar Association’s attempt to subpoena Boris Epshteyn’s communications in its lawsuit against executive orders on law firms. Epshteyn, Trump’s personal lawyer, handled many of the White House deals with the law firms that capitulated to the administration’s demands last year. The OLC memo could also create hurdles for congressional oversight if the balance of power changes next year.

Finally, DOJ announced it will no longer use a peer review system that uses outside experts to evaluate grant applications. The peer review program, which is considered the gold standard and has been used for decades, ensures the billions of dollars in grant money DOJ awards each year is distributed in an impartial way. Kris Rose is a former director of the Office for Victims of Crime who also helped design Justice Connection’s Mental Health Support Network. As she told CBS News, the program “is one of the tools that the government could use to make good, sound, cost-effective decisions.”

Going forward, DOJ’s grant offices will conduct internal peer reviews of applications — putting stress on already understaffed offices and exposing the grantmaking process to greater political influence.

Here are a few other things you might’ve missed:

• A whistleblower, who worked as a lawyer in the Civil Rights Division under this administration, reported that administration officials ignored investigators who said there was not enough evidence to pursue civil rights cases against Brown University, Columbia, and Harvard.

• Acting Attorney General Blanche told anti-abortion faith leaders that DOJ is working to ensure Dobbs, the Supreme Court decision that overturned Roe v. Wade, is “permanent in every single state” by cracking down on mail-order medication.

• Reuters reported that sex trafficking investigations have stalled amidst staffing shortages, funding cuts, and the prioritization of immigration enforcement at DOJ.

• Ed Martin is leaving the Justice Department. President Trump made the announcement on Aug. 21, saying Martin will be leaving DOJ to work on election litigation from outside the government.

• President Trump says U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro for the District of Columbia “choked” and “folded like an umbrella” after she dropped charges against former Olympian David Hearn, who was accused of vandalizing the Reflecting Pool. The charges were dropped after Pirro’s office found that the damage was caused by poor installation. The White House has reportedly asked DOJ to bring new charges against Hearn.

The following is an article written by Jill Fields, a former FBI intelligence analyst. We are publishing it with her permission.

In late July and August, malicious cyber actors focused on disrupting U.S. water and wastewater infrastructure. These cyber actors exploited vulnerable, internet-exposed industrial control systems, namely programmable logic controllers. They tampered with device configurations instead of physical destruction. The attacks centered on locking out operators, changing settings, and degrading automated processes to force manual intervention. The Iranian government is widely believed to be responsible for these attacks.

These cyberattacks were predictable – and this administration’s fumbles left us dangerously unprepared. The culmination of personnel losses, program eliminations, and willful ignorance by the Trump administration almost certainly created a recipe for disaster where Iranian cyber-hackers have adapted, infiltrated, and attacked U.S. critical infrastructure. This assessment is made with high confidence based on historical information, expert interviews, Office of Personnel Management data, and various news sources.

The U.S. Intelligence Community has long warned of Iran’s cyber capabilities. Former Deputy Assistant Director of FBI Cyber Division and current senior vice president at Halycon, Cynthia Kaiser, told PBS News Hour this month that she would be surprised to learn that the attacks were not conducted by Iran. Iran has the geopolitical motive, the capability to carry out these attacks, and a history of doing so. Beth Sanner, former Trump presidential intelligence briefer, noted when fighting an asymmetric battle with a smaller, weaker opponent like Iran, they become creative and think like insurgents.

Iran has a history of exercising its cyber capabilities against the United States and U.S. related targets. (See Figure 1, Iran Hacking Timeline.) Whether disrupting U.S. banks or hacking the FBI Director’s personal email, Iranian cyber groups have shown they will make the most of any opportunity.

How Could This Happen?

Step 1: Cut One-third of CISA employees

Since Trump’s second inauguration on January 20, 2025, the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has lost one-third of its workforce. As of October 2025, the Trump administration sought to shrink CISA’s workforce through layoffs and orders to take new jobs elsewhere or leave the government. DHS ordered many CISA employees to report to other government agencies, including Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection. The administration specifically focused on cuts in the Stakeholder Engagement Division and the Integrated Operations Division. Both divisions work closely with local, state, and private partners either through managing relationships or providing services to partner organizations.

The FBI worked closely with partners at CISA, especially our partners in the regional offices. In the field, FBI agents partnered with CISA for site visits to state, local, and privately managed critical infrastructure. These visits were crucial to supporting partner engagement and providing local points-of-contact for industry partners to request assistance or report security concerns, including cyber intrusions. The FBI also supported CISA through the InfraGard program, a partnership between the FBI and members of the private sector for the protection of U.S. critical infrastructure. Through Infragard, the FBI shares threat intelligence bulletins and alerts, provides training, and creates educational programs.

Many of CISA’s regional advisors were also pushed out. These regional advisors spent years building relationships with state, local, and private sector partners. Without these points of contact, state, local, and private sector partners don’t know who to contact, meaning information sharing is delayed or does not happen at all. Many industry partners describe the relationship as broken, citing unanswered requests for assistance and serious doubts of CISA’s current capabilities. According to CyberScoop, one source reported that “Organizations that previously turned to CISA for help now seek alternatives, like industry alliances, outside consultants or government-to-government partnerships.” Another source said, “Not only is the White House hostile to CISA, but cybersecurity isn’t a priority for them.” (See Redline.)

The personnel loss was felt deeply across CISA, even in sections that were not specifically targeted with layoffs.In February 2026, then-executive assistant director Nick Andersen held a Cybersecurity Division town hall to inform employees of shifting priorities. Andersen said many programs would be eliminated to take on other priorities, and employees would have to do “a lot more work with a lot less people.”

Step 2: Chop Subject-Matter Expertise

Shortly before the United States launched attacks on Iran, FBI Director Kash Patel fired approximately a dozen agents and staff members from CI-12, a counterintelligence squad at FBI’s Washington Field Office that monitored threats from Iran. These firings amount to throwing away decades of subject-matter expertise on a geopolitical rival described by the intelligence community as “adaptable and opportunistic.” Included among those who were fired was a section chief in the FBI’s Counterintelligence Division who handled espionage threats from the Iranian government and its proxies. Christopher O’Leary, former FBI agent and MS NOW national security contributor, called these firings “the equivalent of institutional decapitation” that dangerously exposes and leaves the country “vulnerable to sophisticated adversaries.”

The terminations came so swiftly that agents likely did not have time to conduct a proper hand-off of sources. This means the FBI is likely not receiving the real-time reporting and information from confidential sources that the U.S. Intelligence Community has come to rely on. The expertise and solid relationships built with confidential sources cannot be replaced by new agents. One source told CBS News these terminations were “devastating to the FBI’s Iran Program.”

Aside from the loss of FBI special agents, the FBI has lost many career intelligence analysts. According to OPM data, from January 1, 2025, to January 31, 2026, 232 intelligence analysts, with an average of 19.6 years of government experience, left the FBI. Two hundred and thirty-two might not sound like very many compared to the over 1,400 special agents who left, but the FBI only has around 3,000 intelligence analysts. Congress authorized the FBI to have that number of analysts after 9/11, and they have not increased that number since. These analysts were adept at analyzing threat variables to provide real-time actionable intelligence to decisionmakers and timely warnings to government partners and the public. The subject matter expertise and relationships with government partners those analysts had cannot be replaced by new hires.

Step 3: Dissolve CIPAC and Threat-Information Sharing

On March 7, 2025, DHS disbanded the Critical Infrastructure Partnership Advisory Council (CIPAC). CIPAC and the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act of 2015 (CISA 2015) provided the legal framework to facilitate cybersecurity, along with threat-information sharing and communications between the public and private sectors. Both CISA and FBI were part of CIPAC. According to industry leaders, while the government is a less reliable partner because of federal cuts, reorganizations, and other disruptions, the elimination of CIPAC is “disastrous” and the “most seismic disruption.”

The personnel losses, cancellation of CIPAC, and reprioritizations not only put CISA at a disadvantage, but also the Sector Risk Management Agencies (SRMAs), other government agencies, and critical infrastructure operators. SRMAs are the federal departments or agencies designated within the U.S. government to lead security, resilience, and risk mitigation programs for the 16 critical infrastructure sectors. Kelly Murray, a former Assistant Director for CISA’s Office of Chemical Security, stated “Without [CIPAC and CISA 2015], sector owners and operators and government alike are unable to reap the full benefits of public-private coordination. . .infrastructure protection depends on sustained, trust-based, cross-sector public–private partnership.”

Meetings with infrastructure leaders have been cancelled, longtime points of contact have been removed and not replaced, and CISA leaders stopped attending industry events and coordination programs. In early March 2026, the Trump administration reportedly blocked the dissemination of a DHS/FBI Intelligence Bulletin warning state and local law enforcement of a heightened threat environment in the wake of the war with Iran. These bulletins and alerts are critical for state, local, and private sector partners and for the safety of the American people. The information is used to inform and prepare communities, targeted groups, and individuals on real threats. In the words of Lauren C. Anderson, former FBI executive: “the U.S. government should not withhold credible threat information from the public.”

While the Infragard program continues to operate as an independent threat-sharing network, the dissolution of CIPAC stripped the vital legal and confidentiality frameworks needed to protect private industry-government collaboration. Trust in the government to be able to effectively combat cybersecurity threats has effectively diminished if not completely disappeared, leaving U.S. critical infrastructure in a debilitating, vulnerable state.

The United States has approximately 150,000 public water systems. Most water systems are small and have very few cybersecurity measures. Utility companies, especially small and medium-sized companies, relied on many of the free services CISA once provided under CIPAC, such as vulnerability scans, table-top exercises, and security briefings. Without these resources, utility companies must pay large fees to private firms for the same information. Small and medium utility companies already work within small budgets, and they cannot afford to pay for this information.

Kaiser shared with PBS News Hour that she was most worried about the water sector because of the lack of funding and IT personnel needed. She reiterated that small municipalities’ lack of resources leaves them vulnerable to attacks. While the support CISA brought to these small municipalities was important, Kaiser said it was critical that we “renew the funding for state and local cybersecurity grants that all of these municipalities are dependent on to be able to have the right kind of cybersecurity.”

Step 4: Stir in a Proven Cyber-Capable Adversary

On February 28, 2026, President Trump directed the U.S. military to launch Operation Epic Fury, a major military campaign coordinated with Israel against Iran, a proven cyber-capable adversary.

Since then, Handala, a hacking group operating under Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS), has taken credit for multiple cyberattacks against the United States and U.S.-related interests, including the data-wiping attack against Stryker Corporation, a medical technology company, and the hacking of FBI Director Kash Patel’s personal email. In June, Handala breached California water systems. Handala asserted that its objective was not to disrupt water service but framed the intrusion as a warning to the White House to stop U.S. military strikes on Iranian water reservoirs, which had already cut drinking water access during a heat wave for 20,000 residents.

Not only does Iran have cyber capabilities, it is a strategic adversary that takes advantage of U.S. policy changes. In 2023, an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) affiliated group hacked into a small Pennsylvania water facility just one month after the EPA rescinded strengthened cybersecurity guidelines for water and wastewater systems following a lawsuit by Republican-led states and groups. The IRGC’s “ability to blend proxy operations, cyber activity, covert logistics, and transnational repression creates a multidimensional threat environment that challenges traditional security frameworks,” according to Homeland Security Today.

So far this year, Iran is doing what it does best: exercising controlled escalation and asymmetric retaliation. The controlled escalation of the hacks into U.S. water systems from June to August show an adversary testing the United States’ threshold for attack. One expert told the New York Times, “The campaign felt a lot like pre-attack staging, not the attack itself. The level of access is sufficient for significantly more harm than has been seen.” Others may perceive it as a warning shot.

Step 5: Hope for the Best

On August 4, 2026, Nick Andersen, now the Acting Director of CISA, stated CISA is recovering from the loss of personnel and hiring personnel to “restore key services to better protect the country from malicious attacks and other threats.” FBI employees continue to be terminated for political reasons or no known reason. Many positions remain unfilled.

On July 1, 2026, more than 15 months after disbanding CIPAC, CISA launched its replacement, the Alliance of National Councils for Homeland Operational Resilience — Critical Infrastructure (ANCHOR-CI). CISA claims ANCHOR-CI’s framework is broader than CIPAC’s and provides for more flexibility. However, CISA has more of an oversight role in ANCHOR-CI by providing approval of the councils, participating organizations, leadership, subject matter experts, and member entities. Also, the CISA Director can appoint additional participants “as needed.” This oversight adds to the bureaucracy, which could slow responsiveness. The Director’s control over the councils’ participants could also hamper the independence of the councils and could limit discussions and information sharing.

Time will tell if ANCHOR-CI’s new framework can bring the critical infrastructure communities back together to be more effective than before. Until then, we should all be cognizant of the threat of cyber-capable adversaries like Iran.

Welcome back to our Substack series to help you stay informed and engaged in protecting the Justice Department. Each month, we pull highlights from Justice Connection’s DOJ Tracker to offer a more digestible way to keep up with the latest attacks.

Here’s what happened in July.

Todd Blanche’s Confirmation Process

On July 15, Todd Blanche appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee at his confirmation hearing for Attorney General. Senators grilled him on a range of topics, including his handling of the Epstein files, and his involvement in the Anti-Weaponization Fund and President Trump’s IRS immunity deal.

Ahead of the hearing, Justice Connection organized and sent the committee a letter signed by more than 1,200 former DOJ employees calling on senators to reject Blanche’s nomination. The letter chronicles the decimation of DOJ’s career workforce under Blanche’s leadership and its impact.

“The consequences of Blanche’s attacks on DOJ’s apolitical workforce radiate beyond the halls of Main Justice, affecting the entire country,” it says. “They’ve meant that much of the department’s vital work isn’t being done, or isn’t being done as well – leaving communities less safe, Americans’ rights less protected, and our national security more vulnerable.”

Justice Connection also released two videos warning that promoting Blanche to be the permanent Attorney General will further erode the rule of law under this administration. The first video features a January 6 prosecutor and police officer describing Blanche’s whitewashing of the violence that took place on that day. “Todd Blanche does not serve justice. He serves criminals who beat up cops and assaulted our democracy,” former D.C. Metropolitan Police Officer Michael Fanone, who was critically injured on Jan. 6, says in the video.

The second video features former DOJ prosecutor and Trump White House lawyer Ty Cobb warning that under Blanche, “there will be no ethical lines between the White House and the Attorney General.” Blanche’s actions signing off on vindictive prosecutions, boasting of firing prosecutors and agents who worked on Special Counsel Jack Smith investigations, and securing a sweetheart immunity deal for Trump and his family make him “unfit” to be Attorney General. (See how Justice Connection led the fight against Blanche’s confirmation here.)

Days before Blanche’s confirmation hearing, a federal judge in Florida issued a scathing order criticizing the Trump-IRS settlement as collusive. Judge Kathleen Williams wrote that Trump’s lawyers acted in bad faith and, along with DOJ, used “the Court to provide some legitimacy ... to earmark billions of dollars from American taxpayers to redress grievances not defined in the law.” She went on to write that “This lawsuit was not brought to vindicate rights; it was brought to manipulate the judicial process to pursue benefits unavailable in litigation because the Parties were not adverse.” Her determination mirrors former federal prosecutor Perry Carbone’s analysis written for Justice Connection’s Substack on the collusive nature of the settlement.

At Blanche’s confirmation hearing on July 15, Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) asked him whether the settlement could still be executed since Blanche had refused to confirm in writing that the Fund was dead. Blanche said that Trump “could potentially say that, I suppose, that we breached by not moving forward.”

Blanche also repeatedly told Senators that the language in the IRS immunity addendum is “standard,” but at a spotlight hearing held by Senator Booker on July 22, Carbone refuted that assertion. “The standard language for a waiver is, ‘We hereby release the parties to the litigation for liability relating to the subject matter of the litigation’,” Carbone said. “That’s not what this is. Some of this language is mind-boggling… This is an extraordinarily broadly written waiver.”

On July 22, Senator Booker convened a spotlight hearing to correct the record following Blanche’s evasive testimony the previous week – an event Justice Connection worked closely with Sen. Booker’s office to coordinate. Justice Connection’s Communications Director, Peter Carr, testified about his own firing by Blanche and the culture of fear that now pervades at DOJ. “These firings send an unmistakable message: agents, analysts, lawyers, and even spokespeople can be fired simply because of their assigned cases,” he told Senators. “This jeopardizes the department’s ability to pursue tough cases and hold the powerful to account.”

Blanche was also questioned on the botched release of the Epstein files under the Epstein Files Transparency Act. Survivor Dani Bensky testified on July 16 that her name, along with more than a hundred other victims’ information, was released over and over despite her lawyer submitting her name for redaction prior to the initial release and multiple communications with DOJ after the release to fix the redactions. When Senators pressed Blanche on why he had not met with survivors, he claimed that he was prohibited to do so by law, which is untrue. It was only after Senator Thom Tillis (R-NC) made it a condition of his vote that Blanche finally met with Epstein survivors.

Survivors described the meeting as “an hour of deflection, interruption and gaslighting” in a letter sent to Cornyn and Tillis. Liz Stein, who testified at the July 22 spotlight forum, told reporters that “It had everything to do with Blanche checking a box so that he can get a promotion.”

Here are a few other things you might’ve missed:

• Civil Rights Division head Harmeet Dhillon is ramping up “election integrity” efforts. Last month, she announced that she will send election monitors to six states during the upcoming primary elections. She also sent a letter to election officials in all 50 states threatening criminal prosecution if there are any instances of noncitizen voting in upcoming elections. Meanwhile, DOJ continues to lose in court over its effort to obtain state voter rolls. On July 23, a federal judge in Kentucky dismissed DOJ’s request for voter registration data, making the department’s record in these cases 0-17.

• Paranoia over leaks escalated this month after the New York Times reported that President Trump was unable to ride the Qatari-gifted Air Force One jet due to security concerns. Over the July 11 weekend, FBI Director Kash Patel was directed to oversee the investigation from the White House – a departure from the longstanding practice of the White House not interfering with FBI investigations. As part of the investigation, some government officials were asked to turn over their phones at the White House. DOJ also subpoenaed New York Times reporters and their relatives for phone records in its search for leakers. DOJ later withdrew those after a judge cast doubt on whether DOJ lawyers followed their own procedures in subpoenaing reporters. Relatedly, on July 12, DOJ and the Pentagon announced a joint task force to investigate leaks.

• DOJ submitted the first-ever application to the Alien Terrorist Removal Court in an effort to deport individuals quickly. The ARTC was created in 1996 to handle deportations of suspected terrorists based on classified information, but it was never used because other legal avenues proved easier and more strategic. The Chief Judge of the ARTC issued an order on July 16 seeking additional information, and encouraging the government to have “more thoughtful consideration” of its course of action.

• The FBI told employees that it will no longer investigate ICE-related shootings or assaults. This came after two more shooting deaths of civilians by ICE agents in Maine and Texas.

I’ve felt a near constant sense of anger in response to this administration’s assault on the Justice Department (my 15 new pounds from rage-eating is proof of this). Having spent the last year and a half running an organization that supports career DOJ employees, I’ve witnessed up close the harm this administration’s relentless attacks on them has caused.

I expected to explode with anger upon learning that Todd Blanche — their chief tormentor — would be confirmed as Attorney General. But when it happened, I didn’t. I was just really sad.

That feeling began during last Friday’s Senate floor speech by Senator Bill Cassidy, the lame duck from Louisiana who voted to convict President Trump of impeachment after January 6. Cassidy made the speech to announce that he would vote to confirm Blanche, all but guaranteeing that President Trump would get his Senate-approved Roy Cohn.

The speech was riddled with distortions, like when Sen. Cassidy said Blanche has been improperly blamed for the pardons of January 6 rioters without mentioning that Blanche touted those pardons as one of the Administration’s greatest achievements. He threw in some fanciful theories (“because of his previous attorney-client relationship with President Trump, Mr. Blanche would be precisely the person to push back on Mr. Trump”), and mixed them with false equivalences (“presidents of both parties have been guilty” of vindictive prosecutions). He concluded with self-pity: “I’ll be criticized for this vote. What’s new?”

But the moment that drove me to sadness was when Sen. Cassidy stated, with a straight face, that “morale is high” among DOJ employees. That claim, he said, came from two political officials who President Trump appointed.

If he’d bothered to talk to any of the actual career employees who comprise 99% of the department, they’d have explained the obvious truth: Morale can’t be high when hundreds of your coworkers have been fired illegally and almost 20,000 have left on their own. Confidence in the institution’s integrity suffers when you’re asked to prosecute the president’s foes, or violate a court order, or target vulnerable communities. It’s hard to believe that justice is the goal when you’re told you represent the President instead of the people — a guiding credo of Blanche’s leadership. And you won’t feel good about your job when you feel judged: by some who accuse you of being the “deep state,” and others who think ethical people should leave.

In fact, low morale doesn’t adequately describe what many of my former DOJ colleagues are going through. They’re experiencing the trauma that members of this administration, like OMB Director Russell Vought, promised to inflict. (In Vought’s own words: “We want the bureaucrats to be traumatically affected. When they wake up in the morning, we want them to not want to go to work because they are increasingly viewed as the villains.”).

I know career employees are feeling trauma because I talk to them every day. They tell me it manifests in ways both psychological and somatic — severe anxiety, hair loss, nightmares, sleeplessness, loss of appetite, and extreme sadness. It’s why many are taking advantage of Justice Connection’s Mental Health Support Network. It’s a reason so many of them have left.

But despite the corrupt and captured leaders in charge, tens of thousands of career employees are still showing up every day to hold the line. They’re struggling to carry out their work in a way that still keeps us safe, secures our freedoms, and protects our pocketbooks. They draw their red lines and they resign or get fired when those lines are crossed — sometimes blowing the whistle along the way.

If enough of them leave, the Justice Department will collapse. If it does, the rule of law will collapse along with it. Senators know better than anyone that the laws they pass don’t enforce themselves.

DOJ employees deserve more than elected officials who stand up in Congress and lie (or fall for a lie) about their morale. They deserve the respect Congress used to show public servants — respect that served as a model for all Americans who benefit from their sacrifices.

Sen. Cassidy seemed to display his own sadness during his speech when he became visibly emotional at the very end of it. Hours later, he voted to confirm Todd Blanche as Attorney General — delivering what may be the harshest blow to employee morale yet.

Justice Connection was proud to stand up for our former colleagues by filing amicus briefs in two cases that could determine the administration’s ability to fire FBI employees without due process on the basis of perceived political affiliation. As the Associated Press reported, our briefs warn that “a ‘politicized’ FBI could turn against citizens because of their speech, association or perceived disloyalty.”

The cases — Doe v. Patel and Garman v. Patel — were brought by former FBI employees who were fired under Article II authority for working on cases disfavored by this administration.

The plaintiffs in Doe had worked in supporting and administrative capacities on the Arctic Frost investigation into efforts to overturn the 2020 election, which culminated in the 2023 indictment of then-former President Donald Trump. The two plaintiffs were fired without due process in late 2025 by FBI Director Kash Patel for participating in alleged “political weaponization of the government.”

Similarly, the plaintiffs in Garman brought a putative class action lawsuit on behalf of over 50 FBI employees who were or will be fired based on their perceived political affiliation, without being afforded due process. The three named plaintiffs were fired for having worked on Special Counsel Jack Smith’s investigations and accused of “weaponizing” their government positions.

In our amicus briefs, Justice Connection and 38 former FBI personnel argue that the firings were not based on merit or misconduct, but “driven by political retribution and an effort to reshape the Bureau into an instrument of partisan control.”

We filed the briefs in response to the FBI and DOJ’s motion to dismiss the lawsuits on procedural grounds.

Since entering office this administration has fired more than 50 FBI employees because of the cases they worked, for disagreeing with Bureau leadership, or for other illegal reasons.

“If personnel may be fired, threatened, or sidelined because they participated in investigations later deemed politically inconvenient, the result will be a workforce chilled into compliance, deterred from pursuing sensitive matters, barred from carrying out long-term and complex investigations, and selected based on loyalty rather than judgment,” the briefs state. “Such a Bureau cannot effectively investigate crime, ensure public safety, or maintain public confidence in the evenhanded enforcement of the law.”

We want to thank WilmerHale for their excellent representation in these cases.

Read our amicus brief in Doe v. Patel

Read our amicus brief in Garman v. Patel

As a career litigator and Chief of the Environmental Enforcement Section at the Justice Department, I learned and sometimes used a phrase to explain the department’s operation: “DOJ says what it means and means what it says.”

That’s certainly the case when it comes to the department’s recent decision to change the name of its Environment and Natural Resources Division, where the Environmental Enforcement Section is housed, to the Energy and Natural Resources Division. The change reveals a sad truth: The pollution control and clean-up laws protecting public health and the environment are now less important to the division than before (and thus most likely less important to federal agencies served by the division, including the Environmental Protection Agency).

The name change did not happen in isolation; it follows a dramatic drop in division resources devoted to environmental enforcement, which inevitably reduces the environmental cleanup and pollution control that otherwise could be secured through judicial enforcement of the law. Sadly, dropping “environment” from the division’s name reflects its current reality.

Substituting “energy” into the division’s title, meanwhile, might best be seen as a half-truth: While regularly disfavoring wind and solar energy development (even attacking it), the current administration has tried to advance other energy forms, especially fossil fuels.

The Name of the Division Follows Its Function

Formed in 1909 as the Public Lands Division, it first focused on protecting the public’s claims to natural resources and publicly held lands, and combatting illegal conveyances of public lands to private interests. The work included suits to set aside illegal deeds and leases. In 1933, then-Attorney General Homer Cummings dropped “Public” from the division’s name, making it the Lands Division. This change reflected the division’s growing role in land acquisition by the federal government, including by condemnation, both to construct federal facilities and to create legacies like our national parks.

In 1965, DOJ changed the division’s name to the Land and Natural Resources Division, again to reflect shifts in function. Land acquisition remained part of the work, but litigation over water resources and rights continued to grow, as did some litigation against polluters — for example under the River and Harbors Act, which prohibited dumping refuse into navigable waters.

In the 1970s and early 1980s, Congress enacted a raft of environmental protection laws, including many with judicial enforcement provisions aimed at compelling environmental compliance and cleanup. These include the modern Clean Air and Clean Water Acts, the Safe Drinking Water Act, the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, and the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (the “Superfund” law). Many of these statutes produced massive enforcement litigation by the division, especially its Environmental Enforcement Section, driving in part a sensible name-change in 1990 to the Environment and Natural Resources Division.

Replacing “Environment” with “Energy” Reflects Changing Priorities as Staff for Civil Judicial Enforcement Work Falls by Half

The division’s Environmental Enforcement Section, where I worked for almost 40 years and led for almost nine, now has less than half the lawyers that it had at the start of this administration. DOJ allowed 18 months to pass before making any public move to mitigate those losses.

At the same time, the division has touted its energy-related litigations, especially those concerning fossil fuels and nuclear energy. Recent press announcements include court decisions that move forward plans to restart a nuclear plant in Michigan, oil and gas extraction in the Gulf of Mexico, and President Trump’s executive orders to “unleash” fossil fuel production.

All administrations generally will look to defend their energy-related (and other) decisions. And the division has litigated energy-related cases for decades, such as cases related to defending aspects of oil-and-gas leasing. (Until 2018 the division’s unofficial seal included what looks to be a petroleum production platform in the Gulf of Mexico!) Indeed, at the heart of ENRD’s litigation docket is the challenge of balancing resource extraction and other human activities with clean air, clean water, ecosystem protection, Tribal sovereignty, and public health. The difference here is the massive change in priority. Resources for civil enforcement look to remain lower than they have been since the mid-1980s. As in prior administrations, the public servants who staff the division today, including its Environmental Enforcement Section, will work to be as effective and efficient as possible, incorporating improved techniques and technology as practicable. But resource reductions matter, especially in labor-intensive, district court litigation where enforcement work often takes place. All of this means that we’ll see less environmental protection through enforcement of the law.

The name change confirms the division’s operating plan and reality: Environmental protection through enforcement of the law is less of a priority than it has been in decades. The defense and promotion of favored legacy energy sources, especially fossil fuels, is now much more important.

Tom Mariani served as chief of DOJ’s Environmental Enforcement Section from 2016 until February 2025, when he departed DOJ upon the then-Acting Attorney General permanently reassigning him to the Sanctuary Cities Enforcement Working Group, an office apparently created to sideline public servants from other parts of DOJ. Mariani joined DOJ in 1986 through its Honors Program and worked on a wide range of pollution control and clean-up matters under landmark federal statutes, such as the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, the Superfund law (a/k/a CERCLA), and the Oil Pollution Act. (For more on the history of ENRD, see ENRD Public Lands and National Treasures: The First 100 Years (100 ANNIV BOOK 11 8 2009 NT.pub) and One Hundred Years of the Environment and Natural Resources Division (One Hundred Years of the Environment and Natural Resources).)

The following is an article drafted by Philip Fields, a former FBI analyst for 13 years. We are publishing this article with his permission.

“Delete your social media accounts.”

I spent more than a decade inside of one of the FBI’s most guarded counterterrorism operations, and this was the first piece of advice we gave newcomers to the Bureau. Living a life of secrecy isn’t easy, especially when senior intelligence officials and special operations team members are constantly leaving the community and publishing tell-all memoirs about what it was like to live inside a terror cell or raid the Bin Laden compound.

For most of us, we will never be able to speak openly with the public about what we did because secrets don’t stop needing protection after the FBI makes an arrest. This reasoning was recently put on display when FBI Director Kash Patel took to the news and social media claiming credit for federal law enforcement’s disruption of a terrorist plot originally targeting the June 14 UFC Freedom 250 event — while arrests were still ongoing.

According to court records and media reports, the plot to attack the UFC event at the White House consisted of more than 20 different subjects trying to overthrow the United States government. At the time of Patel’s statements on June 16, only 10 of the individuals had been identified and five were in custody. As it turned out, between June 12 and 13, the focus of the plot shifted away from the UFC event to Fourth of July gatherings and a July 3 World Cup game in Kansas City, Missouri.

As the FBI and Secret Service continued to investigate, multiple subjects made references to learning details of the investigation through media reports, DOJ press releases, and court documents. Then, on June 18, one subject notified an associate of another change of plans because of news reports of FBI investigative activity. In an act that would be comedic if not so reckless, on June 13, an FBI agent called one of the subjects on the phone to inquire as to whether they intended to drive to Washington the following day and participate in the attack on the UFC fight. The subject reportedly hung up on the agent and deleted their Signal account along with any potential evidence it may have revealed under more thoughtful investigative scrutiny.

Throughout these events, several facts have become abundantly clear. The FBI is losing its ability to maintain the kind of operational security necessary to protect the integrity of its investigations. This shift is likely the result of the widespread loss of leadership and expertise over the past 18 months, as well as a heightened demand from senior leadership to produce newsworthy results rather than investigative success. Such acts of repeated indiscretion will only continue to damage the FBI over time.

Those of us who’ve served at the FBI have watched with horror as the FBI Director simultaneously fosters a culture of imprudence and threatens crackdowns on employees’ outside communications. Yet, there is one cluster of investigative activity the FBI and DOJ have yet to make official comment on: the Director’s Advisory Team — a handpicked group of agents willing to pursue political targets (also known as the “payback squad”) — which is under investigation by the House Judiciary Committee for accepting more than $1 million in awards from Patel’s office.

This lack of transparency surrounding the highly publicized investigative activity of the Director’s Advisory Team weighed against the repeated rush to take credit for more politically favorable disruptions lays bare what are likely the real reasons for Patel’s June 16 comments on the UFC plot. He almost certainly did it because he hoped to win favor in the eyes of the President for “saving” his birthday party after a year of negative press.

Ultimately, the true measure of an FBI career lies not in a headline, but in the silence that follows a successful disruption. For decades, the rank-and-file have quietly sacrificed the laurels of public recognition and self-promotion to ensure justice is served, rather than performed. This silence isn’t meant to impede transparency, but to safeguard the sources, methods, and ongoing investigations that protect the nation. The allure of the spotlight may be strong in an age of hypervisibility, but if the Bureau is to survive this unprecedented institutional strain, it will be because quiet professionals chose to let their silence speak for their integrity.

If the Director truly wishes to showcase the Bureau’s operations on social media, he should start with the inner workings of his own heavily rewarded Director’s Advisory Team, as requested by the House Judiciary Committee.

The following is Communications Director Peter Carr’s testimony before a July 22, 2026, Senate spotlight forum titled, “Todd Blanche: The President’s Lawyer.” Watch it here.

Thank you, Senator Booker, Ranking Member Durbin, and members of the Judiciary Committee for the opportunity to speak with you today.

I am one of hundreds of career Justice Department employees unlawfully terminated under the leadership of Todd Blanche.

In fact, he is the one who signed my termination notice.

I served as a government spokesman for nearly 25 years, and I started my career right here in the Senate, as a press secretary for Senator Orrin Hatch, a Republican from Utah and former chairman of this very committee.

In 2007, I joined the Justice Department as a political appointee for President George W. Bush, where I oversaw public affairs for the entire department.

At the end of the Bush Administration, I converted to a career employee. Over my 15 years at the department I held a number of roles, including being assigned to serve as the spokesman for two Special Counsels: Robert Mueller and Jack Smith.

As part of my responsibilities with the Jack Smith cases, I attended the public court hearings both in D.C. and also in Florida. I was observed regularly by President Trump’s legal team, which included Todd Blanche. I also became acquainted with the current Associate Attorney General, Stanley Woodward, who served as counsel to Walt Nauta, a co-defendant in the Florida case.

After the election, I attended a hearing in January 2025 in Florida to determine whether the report covering the classified documents case would become public. At that hearing, Stanley Woodward approached me, shook my hand, and expressed his appreciation that I would continue to serve at the Justice Department.

That was surprising because within the first weeks, the new Administration terminated the prosecutors who worked in the Special Counsel’s Office and those who handled January 6th prosecutions.

This was traumatic for employees throughout the department. Never before had career employees been fired simply because of their case assignments.

Nevertheless, I was determined to stay. And at no point over the next months did I receive any indication that my work was unfavorable, insufficient, or not in the interest of the department.

That changed on April 11, 2025.

Walking down the hall to my office, I saw Todd Blanche, who at the time was the Deputy Attorney General, turn to look my way. I believe this was the first time he would have seen my face in the department.

Two hours later, a security officer came to my office and gave me an envelope. Inside was a memo from Todd Blanche, informing me that I had been immediately terminated from my position. The officer informed me that I had to gather my belongings, and then he escorted me out of the building.

My firing violated civil service protection laws. And I’m not alone. Blanche has fired or overseen the firings of hundreds of DOJ employees – usually without notice, and for improper, unlawful reasons.

But these firings aren’t just unlawful, they are also incredibly damaging to the department and its law enforcement mission.

The men and women at the Justice Department handle some of the most complicated and important cases in government. They are expected to do it and not think of the consequences.

They can’t do that anymore. This administration has fired or pushed out hundreds of the department’s best people for simply doing their jobs. People who did everything by the book. They just worked on cases people in power don’t like. Or they refused to move forward with cases where the facts and the law didn’t support criminal charges.

These firings send an unmistakable message: agents, analysts, lawyers, and even spokespeople can be fired simply because of their assigned cases.

This jeopardizes the department’s ability to pursue tough cases and hold the powerful to account.

If an agent or prosecutor thinks they’ll be fired for their cases, they are less likely to accept difficult assignments. And they might start looking more at the long-term consequences of an investigation for their careers, rather than at the facts and the law.

That’s not the justice we should want for our country.

And that’s why I now work for Justice Connection, a nonpartisan network of Justice Department alumni who are providing much-needed support for DOJ employees who have been harmed by this administration.

We come from all political viewpoints. Some, like me, are Republican, others are Democrats, but we share an overriding commitment to live up to the oath we took as civil servants to uphold and defend the Constitution, not the occupant of the White House.

More than 1,200 of us signed a letter opposing Todd Blanche’s nomination because the culture of fear Blanche has instilled within DOJ’s workforce must end. Respect for career professionals must return. For the rule of law to survive, we need a course-correction at the department – and Todd Blanche has shown us that it won’t happen on his watch.

For the sake of the institution where I once proudly served, I urge you to reject his nomination.

Justice Connection today released a video featuring Ty Cobb, who served as a White House lawyer under the first Trump administration, opposing Todd Blanche’s nomination for Attorney General.

Cobb is a former DOJ prosecutor and supervisor who served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the District of Maryland from 1981 to 1986, where he was Chief of the Criminal Division and Mid-Atlantic Regional Coordinator for the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force. In early 2017, he was asked by President Trump to serve as the Special White House Counsel where, among other duties, he managed the White House response to Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

“Todd Blanche was a prosecutor, a private defense attorney, and is part of this administration. I was a prosecutor, a private defense attorney, and part of Trump’s first administration,” Cobb says in the video. “People that I know who have served in the administrations of the last 50 years of my professional career have all been people who devoted themselves to the country – not to an individual.”

While serving as Deputy Attorney General and Acting Attorney General, Blanche has signed off on vindictive prosecutions into Trump’s political enemies, boasted of firing career prosecutors and agents who were assigned to work on Special Counsel Jack Smith investigations, and secured a settlement that absolved Trump and his family of all past tax liabilities, among many other abuses.

“If Todd Blanche is confirmed as Attorney General, there will be no ethical lines between the White House and the Attorney General. There are no lines now,” says Cobb. “Todd Blanche is unfit to be Attorney General of the United States.”

This piece isn’t one of them.

I want to share the bizarre story of what happened after more than 1,200 DOJ alumni sent a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee, highlighting the ways in which Todd Blanche disqualified himself from leading the Justice Department.

In an interview the day we sent the letter, Blanche said, “There’s 1,200 former DOJ employees, I think, out of what – 40,000? I don’t know. I’m not a math guy, but that’s not a very high percentage.”

DOJ itself also had thoughts. In an ad hominem attack, the department called the signatories – the vast majority of whom served in apolitical career roles at DOJ – “a who’s who of partisan activists.” Neither Blanche nor DOJ addressed any of the points we made in the letter.

So I was surprised last Tuesday when someone sent me an article from The Federalist describing “a letter from 77 former Department of Justice officials” calling Blanche “the right man for the right time.” Later in the day I learned that the White House boasted about this endorsement on social media and its official website.

Like Blanche, I’m also not a math guy. But everyone I asked agreed: 1,200 is a much larger number than 77.

Another strange thing about The Federalist article is that it linked to our letter (sent, in their words, by the “absurdly named ‘Justice Connection’”), but it didn’t link to the letter from the 77 alumni. The article named four former officials who signed that letter – all of whom were political appointees during the first or second Trump administration – but we don’t know who the other 73 are or if any of them were career employees, and we don’t know what the letter says.

I’ll also note that while 116 of Blanche’s former colleagues from his Southern District of New York days sent a letter to the Judiciary Committee supporting his nomination to be Deputy Attorney General in 2025, they don’t seem to be publicly supporting his promotion to Attorney General (in fact, 54 former SDNY employees added their names to our letter).

My intention here isn’t to denigrate anyone for supporting Todd Blanche. Instead, I’m sharing this story to call out the administration’s hypocrisy in castigating the more than 1,200 alumni who courageously added their names to our letter opposing this nomination – and to emphasize how meaningful it is that so many former employees joined the chorus of opposition.

This article was written by Mimi Rocah and Perry Carbone, and first published in MS Now. It is being reprinted with the authors’ permission.

Todd Blanche is an experienced prosecutor and lawyer. Those are necessary qualifications to serve as attorney general, but they are far from sufficient. The office demands more, including a willingness to exercise judgment based solely on the law and the interests of the American people. Since becoming part of the Justice Department leadership in March 2025, Blanche has repeatedly demonstrated that he cannot be trusted to exercise that independence. For that reason, the Senate Judiciary Committee should reject his nomination to be attorney general.

We write as lawyers who worked alongside Blanche for several years in the Southern District of New York and once considered him a close friend. SDNY is known for its independence from politics and outside influence. Our office pursued investigations and cases vigorously, whether the target was rich, politically connected or famous, regardless of which political party was in power. As federal prosecutors, we were taught that our duty was to pursue justice fairly, impartially and independently — not to bring or win cases at all costs, to advance political agendas or to serve powerful individuals.

In our view, Blanche has turned his back on these principles. It has been painful to watch many of his actions as deputy attorney general and acting attorney general, especially his participation in the firing of career prosecutors and FBI agents based purely on political considerations. We regarded Blanche highly at SDNY, but we feel obligated as former officers of the Justice Department to speak plainly — as did more than 1,200 other DOJ alums opposing his nomination. Our concern is not political; all presidents are entitled to appoint senior Justice Department officials who share their law enforcement priorities. Our concern is institutional: whether the Justice Department will continue to exist to serve the American people and whether Americans will have faith in its decisions and actions.

This week brought further reason for doubt. On Monday, the federal judge overseeing President Donald Trump’s lawsuit against the IRS denounced the case as an exercise in self-dealing “brought for an improper purpose — to gain the imprimatur of judicial legitimacy for a ‘settlement’ that had no viable basis in law or fact.” The judge referred all government attorneys involved, including Blanche, to state bar agencies for potential disciplinary proceedings. Blanche, formerly Trump’s personal attorney, announced a “settlement” that would have created a $1.776 billion “anti-weaponization” fund that Trump pledged to share with supporters; he also signed an addendum to grant Trump and his family immunity from tax claims predating the settlement. In other words, Blanche used Justice Department powers to help facilitate a facially frivolous lawsuit against an agency the president controls and then claimed to settle it, including by signing away the IRS’ enforcement authority. This is Blanche acting to benefit Trump personally, not in the interests of the American public.

As acting attorney general, Blanche has been open about his willingness to allow Trump to dictate who the Justice Department prosecutes. In an April press conference, Blanche said that Trump ‌has a “right” and a “duty” to shape federal probes of individuals who had investigated him. Blanche has overseen several indictments of individuals publicly criticized by the president, including an absurd second indictment of former FBI Director James Comey for a “threat” made via seashells. Just last week, a judge appointed by Trump ruled that the dismissals Blanche oversaw of convictions against members of the Proud Boys for conduct related to the Jan. 6, 2021, riots were “without regard to the seriousness of the conduct at issue.” The judge made clear that the dismissals were sought because Trump wanted them, not because they were warranted based on fact or law.

A Justice Department run as the president’s personal firm is not a strong one. There are already many examples of this: The repeated dismissals of DOJ indictments such as the failed revenge indictments against Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James; grand juries’ rejections of cases such as the attempted seditious prosecution of senators; the subpoena of Jerome Powell, at the time the Federal Reserve chair, that a judge dismissed as a “fishing expedition.” Add to all that the exodus of experienced professionals from the Justice Department and the loss of trust by many federal judges. Blanche is not only transforming the Justice Department into a political institution; he is also eroding its traditional strengths.

There is also the Epstein issue. As deputy attorney general, Blanche interviewed Ghislaine Maxwell. Simply put, he gave a convicted sex trafficker a platform to lie about her conduct, without pushback, before she was rewarded with a prison transfer — actions that appear motivated by a desire to solve a political crisis for the president. Little wonder many Epstein survivors say Blanche “betrayed” them.

Some, such as former Attorney General Bill Barr, have argued that Blanche’s prosecutorial experience qualifies him to be attorney general. But Blanche’s training makes the actions he has already taken all the more disturbing, because he knows that the DOJ should not be used as a tool of personal power. Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina has warned that he will be watching for “even a whiff” that the Justice Department would not operate independently under Blanche. Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana was more stark, saying he needs to be convinced that Blanche is “the attorney general who used to be the president’s personal attorney” — not the other way around. Sen. John Cornyn has said that once confirmed, Blanche “won’t be the president’s lawyer.” They and every other senator should remember that Blanche pledged to keep political and personal interference out of the Justice Department in his last confirmation hearing — with the above results.

Attorney General Robert H. Jackson said in 1940 that a prosecutor “seeks truth and not victims, … serves the law and not factional purposes.” Surely that applies to the office of attorney general. Together, we have spent almost five decades as federal prosecutors under attorneys general appointed by presidents of both parties, carrying out their law enforcement priorities whether we agreed with them or not. But the attorney general has a clear client: the United States. Todd Blanche has shown himself unable or unwilling to stop prioritizing the interests of Donald Trump above all else.

During his confirmation hearing to be Attorney General, Todd Blanche confirmed what we’ve known all along: he still views himself as President Trump’s personal lawyer. Blanche also left a number of important questions unanswered. Based on input from subject matter experts in Justice Connection’s DOJ alumni network – former Assistant United States Attorneys, public corruption prosecutors, civil rights and environmental litigators, and more – we prepared questions for the record that Blanche should answer before Senators vote on his nomination.

Motions to Vacate Seditious Conspiracy Convictions

On or about April 11, 2026, the department moved to vacate the seditious conspiracy convictions of leaders of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers.

• Given that these convictions were secured at trial and upheld on appeal, did any career prosecutors recommend against pursuing this motion?

• Prior to the filing, did you receive any communications from the White House, or the President himself, regarding these specific cases?

• Have you, the Principal Assistant Deputy Attorney General, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, or the Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights had direct contact—including via text—with January 6 defendants or their counsel while serving in the Justice Department? Do you commit to providing those communications to the committee?

• Do you acknowledge that there is no credible evidence suggesting federal agents or law enforcement instigated the events at the Capitol on January 6? Do you agree that the “fedsurrection” theory is meritless?

Personnel Actions and Removals

• Earlier this year you boasted at the Conservative Political Action Conference that there is no longer “a single man or woman at the Department of Justice who had anything to do with” the Trump criminal prosecutions. What is the total number of attorneys, agents, and staff members previously assigned to the January 6 or classified documents prosecutions who have been terminated, demoted, or reassigned during your tenure as Deputy Attorney General and Acting Attorney General?

• On January 28, 2025, now-Judge Emil Bove directed Ed Martin to fire prosecutors who worked on January 6 cases in the Capitol Siege Section, calling their appointments “subversive personnel actions.” What was your involvement in those firings? How many times did you discuss this topic with Mr. Bove prior to your confirmation as Deputy Attorney General?

• On April 7, 2026, at your first press conference after becoming Acting Attorney General, you defended firing career prosecutors who handled the classified documents and election interference cases against Donald Trump by saying, “if you were a prosecutor and you were trying to prosecute your boss, you have ethical duties that I think prevent you from continuing to work in that environment.” What specific Rule(s) of Professional Conduct or department policy mandates such an obligation?

• What was the justification for the removal of Ed Martin as chair of the Weaponization Working Group? Will you commit to providing materials regarding his removal to the committee?

• How often did you meet with Mr. Martin regarding the working group’s activities during his leadership?

• What is Mr. Martin’s current role at the department? What are his job duties?

DOJ Independence

• At a press conference this April you said it is the President’s “right” to intervene in individual criminal cases and target his political enemies for prosecution. Putting the question of his constitutional authority aside, doesn’t presidential involvement in individual criminal cases undermine confidence in the Justice Department and the federal criminal justice system?

• Does the direct involvement of the President in criminal prosecutions erode the public trust that DOJ tried to restore following the Watergate scandal?

• Do you believe it is ethically sound or just for any President to direct the use of DOJ’s prosecutorial power?

• Before your confirmation as Deputy Attorney General, you committed to following all governing Attorney General memoranda, including any addressing contacts between DOJ and the White House. Is the contacts policy currently in the Justice Manual, dated July 21, 2021, still in force?

• If so, are you following it?

• If not, will you commit to issuing a White House contacts policy that protects the department’s criminal and civil decisions from partisan or other inappropriate influences?

• Have you or any members of your office ordered or approved the opening of any grand jury investigations because you were asked to do so by the President or any member of his staff?

• Have you or any members of your office been contacted by the President or any member of his staff about any open investigations or charged cases?

• Have you or any members of your office asked any U.S. Attorney’s Offices to open investigations or pursue criminal charges involving a public official that the President has publicly supported or criticized?

• If you had sufficient evidence to open an investigation into a member of the President’s Cabinet, or a member of his staff, would you do so?

Assistance in the President’s Misuse of Executive Clemency

Under your leadership, the department has effectively institutionalized the President’s corrupt exploitation of the pardon power.

• The Justice Manual outlines a series of procedures to evaluate pardon recommendations (see JM 9-1.40.111 and JM 9-140.112), which ensures uniform criteria for commutation petitions. If confirmed, will you commit to following these policies?

• You recently testified before the House Appropriations Committee that it’s illegal to pay a bribe to obtain a pardon. If there is evidence someone paid a bribe to obtain a pardon from President Trump, do you commit that the department will investigate it?

• If credible evidence emerges that Ed Martin – or any DOJ official – accepted or facilitated the payment of a bribe for a pardon, would you fire them?

“Anti-Weaponization Fund”

You testified before a House appropriations subcommittee that the $1.776 billion “anti-weaponization fund” is “not going forward, period,” but you also said that the reasons behind the fund “remain as important as they were before.”

• According to The New York Times, your Principal Associate Attorney General, Trent McCotter, created the Fund. Is that accurate? Who else helped devise the fund?

• What was Boris Epshteyn’s role in creating the Fund?

• If the President tells you to reverse your decision, will you move forward with the Fund?

• Has any January 6 defendant, or their counsel, applied for or inquired about a payment? Will you commit to providing us with records of any January 6 defendant who seeks compensation from the Fund or from the federal government through other means?

How did the department calculate the $1.776 billion sum requested from the Judgment Fund?

• Was this amount derived from a specific assessment of litigation risk?

• Did the department make any specific assumptions regarding the identity of claimants against the “anti-weaponization fund” when seeking the $1.776 billion?

• Did those assumptions include individuals who assaulted law enforcement or engaged in the destruction of property at the Capitol?

• In the absence of such assumptions, by what objective metrics was the $1.776 billion figure established?

Judgment Fund

You’ve claimed the administration is not moving forward with the $1.776 billion “anti-weaponization” fund, but under your leadership, DOJ has already used taxpayer dollars to settle lawsuits by the president’s allies. Earlier this year, DOJ agreed to pay $1.25 million to Michael Flynn, even though a federal court had previously dismissed Flynn’s claim that he was a victim of malicious prosecution.

• If confirmed, what criteria will you use (or instruct DOJ staff to use) when deciding whether to settle a case or administrative claim where the settlement would be paid from the Treasury Department’s Judgment Fund?

• What factors will you consider (or instruct DOJ staff to consider) when determining the amount of a settlement to be paid from the Judgment Fund?

• Do you commit to settling cases with Judgment Fund payouts only when there is a substantial risk that the United States would be held liable if the case proceeded to trial?

• Do you commit that under your leadership, DOJ will not give any Judgment Fund payouts to rioters who assaulted law enforcement on January 6?

Epstein Survivor Rights and Privacy

• Why did you disregard longstanding department guidance, reflected in the Attorney General’s Guidelines on Victim Witness Assistance, by releasing the Epstein files with information that directly compromised the anonymity of Epstein survivors?

• Prior to the public disclosure of sensitive materials that identified survivors of Jeffrey Epstein, did you undertake any efforts to notify all affected individuals to explain the scope of the release, the justification for it, and the specific measures you intended to implement for their protection?

Ghislaine Maxwell and Epstein Investigation

You portrayed your July 2025 interview with Ghislaine Maxwell, Jeffrey Epstein’s convicted co-conspirator, as a pursuit of justice where “no lead is off-limits.” However, reports indicate that you failed to consult the lead prosecutor – Maurene Comey – to prepare for this interview, and she was terminated without notice or explanation immediately prior to your meeting with Maxwell.

• Why didn’t you consult with the lead prosecutor before interviewing a witness as pivotal as Maxwell?

• During the interview, did you confront Maxwell with the sentencing judge’s findings that she played a “pivotal role” in a “horrific scheme” to traffic girls as young as 14?

• Why did you describe her conduct as mere “allegations” when a jury’s conviction had already been affirmed on appeal?

• How do you reconcile your testimony that Maxwell was moved from “low security” to “low security” with the fact that unlike the facility in Tallahassee, the camp in Bryan is a minimum-security facility with dormitory housing and no perimeter fencing?

• Did Maxwell’s transfer comport with Bureau of Prisons policy?

While you have publicly stated that you “fight for victims” and have met with their legal counsel, many Epstein survivors report feeling betrayed by the department’s actions under your leadership.

• Why were survivors forced to learn about Maxwell’s transfer to a low-security facility through news reports rather than from the Department of Justice?

• How do you respond to Judge Paul Engelmayer’s recent assessment that the department has only paid “lip service” to these survivors without providing the solicitude they are legally and ethically owed?

Use of Deadly Force and Civil Rights Enforcement

• Has DOJ opened a criminal civil rights investigation into the circumstances surrounding the death of Renee Good? If not, why?

• Public reports indicate that the Criminal Section of the Civil Rights Division, the component typically charged with pursuing these matters, has been gutted. Who is assigned to investigate the death of Alexander Pretti and what is their level of experience?

• Has the Justice Department assigned any attorneys from the Civil Rights Division to investigate the recent shooting deaths of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in Texas and Joan Sebastián Durán Guerrero in Maine?

Criminal civil rights enforcement includes a commitment to investigating unconstitutional conditions of confinement. Yet, there are countless public reports of conditions in ICE detention facilities that shock the conscience for their barbarity and cruelty.

• How many investigations into ICE facilities has DOJ opened during your time in leadership?

• Who is assigned to these matters?

• What is your plan for analyzing whether those who have been deliberately indifferent to unconstitutional conditions of confinement in ICE facilities should be prosecuted?

Decimation of the Public Integrity Section

• I assume you agree that predication is critically important for all investigations, including those involving public corruption. In the wake of the decimation of the Public Integrity Section last year, what specific policies and procedures has the department implemented to ensure that public corruption investigations are not initiated without legitimate predication?

• The Justice Manual requires the Public Integrity Section’s approval for certain actions involving prosecutions of members of Congress, including charging a member for conduct related to public office or campaign activities.This helps ensure apolitical, consistent, and competent prosecutions. Is the department still following this requirement?

• Did the department follow the requirement when prosecutors tried to indict six Democratic members of Congress over their video about unlawful orders?

The Justice Manual has a provision pertaining to the “corruption of elections” that mandates consultation with the Public Integrity Section in federal criminal matters involving campaign finance violations and crimes or corruption of the election process. DOJ’s website says that “Department leadership is currently revising this section. The Consultation Requirement is suspended while revisions are ongoing. [June 2025].”

• What revisions are being made or have been made to this important oversight for ensuring that department investigations of campaign finance violations and interference with elections are being investigated correctly, with proper expertise, and consistently?

• Why is it necessary to suspend this protection before the revision has been completed?

Grand Jury Abuse

The constitutional standard for indictment is probable cause, but the Justice Department has long held its prosecutors to a higher standard under which they should not present an indictment unless they believe the admissible evidence will probably be sufficient to obtain and sustain a conviction.

• If confirmed, will you commit to ensuring all Justice Department prosecutors adhere to that standard? What specific steps will you take to do so?

• Do you agree that prosecutors can instruct grand juries on the law but cannot interject their own opinion?

• Do you agree that prosecutors cannot tell grand jurors to trust them to only bring strong cases?

• Considering the number of cases under review in Chicago following the dismissal of cases where prosecutors engaged in misconduct before a grand jury, if confirmed, what steps will you take to ensure that prosecutors throughout the country understand their proper role before grand juries?

Environmental Enforcement

Since the commencement of the current presidential term, the Environment [now Energy] and Natural Resources Division (ENRD) has experienced a precipitous decline in staffing, with some legal sections losing nearly half of their personnel. While recruitment was eventually permitted for defensive litigators, the Environmental Enforcement Section – which is primarily responsible for civil enforcement of pollution control and cleanup laws – was only authorized to fill vacancies in June 2026, following public scrutiny of these vacancies.

• Why was the authorization to recruit for the Environmental Enforcement Section delayed until staff shortages were publicized?

• How have the staff shortages affected the work of the Environmental Enforcement Section?

• During the first two years of the administration, how many complaints were filed, judgments entered, and settlements reached by the Environmental Enforcement Section – and how does this compare to the first two years of the prior administration?

Domestic Terrorism and Civil Rights

The persistent threat of racially and religiously motivated violent extremism continues to plague the nation. Yet, the administration has appeared to endorse the actions of organizations like the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys through its January 6 clemency initiatives and attempts to establish financial reserves for their benefit. Under your watch, the department has effectively dismantled the National Security Division’s domestic terrorism portfolio and the Civil Rights Division’s Criminal Section.

• Given the loss of agents and lawyers responsible for combatting racially and religiously motivated violent extremism, how do you intend to address these threats going forward?

Justice Connection today released a video calling on senators to reject Todd Blanche’s Attorney General nomination for his role in whitewashing the violence that took place on January 6, 2021.

The video features former D.C. Metropolitan Police Officer Michael Fanone, who was on the front lines on Jan. 6 and suffered traumatic injuries as a result, and former Assistant U.S. Attorney and Senior Trial Counsel for the Capitol Siege Section Mike Gordon, who prosecuted dozens of violent offenders from that day including many of the most notorious defendants.

During Blanche’s tenure as Acting Attorney General, DOJ vacated the seditious conspiracy convictions of Oath Keepers and Proud Boys leaders who organized the riot, and erased all press releases about Jan. 6 defendants from the official DOJ website. Blanche also signed off on a $1.776 billion slush fund and refused to rule out the possibility of Jan. 6 offenders receiving compensation from the fund or through other means. After assuring lawmakers that the fund was “not moving forward,” Blanche refused to submit a declaration formalizing that decision to a federal court.

“Todd Blanche does not serve justice. He serves criminals who beat up cops and assaulted our democracy,” says Fanone.

“Please join us in standing up for the rule of law by rejecting a man who doesn’t,” says Gordon.

The Supreme Court’s decision last month in Trump v. Slaughter will mostly be discussed as a case about the President’s power to fire members of independent agencies. But its consequences may reach far beyond the Federal Trade Commission.

One of the institutions now at risk is the Merit Systems Protection Board—the agency charged with protecting the federal civil service from partisan political abuse, retaliation, and arbitrary personnel decisions.

Those concerns are no longer theoretical. In Harris v. Bessent, the D.C. Circuit held that the President may remove MSPB members notwithstanding the statutory “for cause” removal protections. The Supreme Court recently declined to review that decision, leaving it in place. Whether or not one agrees with that result, it substantially weakens the structural independence Congress sought to provide the Board.

That may sound technical, but it’s not. If the MSPB loses its independence, then the people who are supposed to protect career federal employees from political retaliation may themselves serve at the pleasure of the President. The referee would answer to one of the teams. This is a sea change across the federal government. But it especially impacts the Department of Justice.

DOJ is different from most agencies because DOJ can take away an individual’s liberty. It can investigate, indict, search, seize, prosecute, negotiate pleas, make sentencing recommendations, and speak in court in the name of the United States. When that power is used properly, it protects the public and vindicates the rule of law. When it is used improperly, it can destroy lives and institutions.

That is why career, nonpartisan attorneys are the standard.

The modern civil service was built to move the federal government away from the old spoils system, where government jobs were rewarded for political loyalty. The basic idea was simple: government should be staffed by people selected for competence, integrity, experience, and commitment to lawful public service—not personal loyalty to the winner of the last election.

At DOJ, that principle is not an abstraction. Career prosecutors and lawyers are often the people in the room who say the hard thing: the evidence is not enough; the search is unconstitutional; the case should not be charged; the discovery must be turned over; the law does not support that position; that request would cross a line.

Those moments rarely make headlines. But they are among the most important things DOJ does.

Political leadership has a legitimate role. Presidents appoint Attorneys General, who set priorities. Presidents also appoint U.S. Attorneys and other limited roles at the department. Elections have consequences, and federal law enforcement priorities can change from administration to administration.

But DOJ’s legitimacy has never depended solely on obedience to political leadership. It depends on something more durable: a professional culture in which lawyers understand that their duty is to the Constitution, the law, the facts, institutional guidelines, and the public—not the personal interests of any president.

Civil service protections helped make that possible. They do not make federal employees untouchable. Bad employees can and should be disciplined. Misconduct should have consequences. Poor performance should be addressed. Accountability is crucial.

But there is a difference between accountability and political control.

A merit system says employees may be disciplined for legitimate reasons, but not for refusing to violate the law, not for disclosing misconduct, not for applying the rules evenly, and not for failing a political loyalty test. The MSPB is part of the structure that gives those protections meaning. If that structure weakens, DOJ changes even if no one rewrites the department’s mission statement.

The danger is not only that career lawyers will be fired. The danger is that they will learn to be afraid.

Recent reporting suggests that these concerns may already be affecting the Board itself. According to the New York Times, White House Officials have sought to influence MSPB decisions behind the scenes in cases involving the dismissal of federal employees. Those reports have been disputed in part, but they underscore the broader concern: once an adjudicative body loses institutional independence, pressure need not take the form of formal directives. Even the perception of political influence can erode confidence in the fairness of the process.

Career attorneys will hesitate before putting concerns in writing. They will stop raising hard questions. They will avoid cases that might anger political leadership. They will wonder whether saying “no” will end their careers. Some will leave. Some will stay and adapt. Over time, the culture shifts from independent legal judgment to anticipatory obedience.

That is how institutions decay. A DOJ filled with fearful lawyers is not a stronger DOJ. It is weaker, less honest, and less worthy of public trust. It will make worse decisions. It will bring weaker cases. It will miss constitutional problems. It will tolerate abuses that should have been stopped early. And if the department becomes staffed or led according to personal loyalty rather than professional judgment, the public will no longer see law enforcement as law enforcement. It will see power protecting friends and punishing enemies.

That is a fatal blow to the rule of law.

The answer is not to pretend career lawyers should run the department; they should not. The Justice Department is part of the executive branch, and democratic accountability is important. But democratic accountability does not require turning career public servants into political instruments.

The better tradition is the one DOJ has long claimed for itself: follow the facts and the law wherever they lead, without prejudice or improper influence. That principle is easy to say. It is much harder to honor when people fear retaliation for saying what the law requires.

The MSPB is not just some obscure personnel board. It is part of the architecture that allows career public servants to resist unlawful pressure. If that protection weakens, anyone who cares about an independent Department of Justice should be alarmed.

The Department of Justice needs lawyers willing to say no when necessary. And it needs institutions strong enough to protect them when they do.

Andrew J. Tessman is a former federal prosecutor, and Founding President and Board Member of the American Constitution Society Mountaineer Lawyer Chapter. He previously served as an Assistant United States Attorney in the Southern District of West Virginia and the District of Columbia. The views expressed are his own.

Welcome back to our Substack series to help you stay informed and engaged in protecting the Justice Department. Each month, we pull highlights from Justice Connection’s DOJ Tracker to offer a more digestible way to keep up with the latest attacks.

Here’s what happened in June.

Todd Blanche Nomination

On June 5, President Trump formally nominated Todd Blanche to serve as the next Attorney General.

Todd Blanche has been serving as Deputy Attorney General since March 2025 and Acting Attorney General since April 2026. In that time, he has overseen a purge of DOJ’s apolitical career workforce and advanced the politicization of the department, undermining both the rule of law and public safety. Justice Connection put together a fact sheet of actions Blanche or his office has directly taken to harm the department.

Justice Connection issued a statement saying, “Todd Blanche has never stopped acting as Donald Trump’s personal lawyer. He has used his high position at the department to enter into a corrupt deal with the president and his family, advance vindictive prosecutions, illegally fire career employees, smear whistle-blowers and attack the judiciary.

“Blanche has abandoned what he learned about blind justice and ethical law enforcement as a career federal prosecutor. His unwavering fealty to the President and destruction of institutional norms should disqualify him from leading the only agency with its foundational virtue in its name.”

Since his nomination, details have come to light about how Blanche’s office shut down investigations into the business practices of a Republican Senator and a potential pay-for-play pardon scheme.

Unlike many political appointees at DOJ, he learned during his years as a career prosecutor why it’s crucial for the department to enforce the law impartially. But his time in leadership shows that he’s there to serve the president — his former client — and not the public.

Blanche’s confirmation hearing is scheduled for July 15 and 16.

Stephen Miller’s Influence

Stephen Miller’s influence over DOJ’s operations appears to have continued. Two separate reports emerged last month providing new insight into the sway Miller might have over prosecutorial decisions.

The New York Times reported that a letter from conservative groups to Miller in part prompted DOJ’s investigation and subsequent indictment of the Southern Poverty Law Center in April. An FBI document from October, when it opened an inquiry, closely reflects the language of the letter that was sent in September. The Times noted another potential reason why Miller wanted DOJ to target SPLC: “In 2019, SPLC wrote a series of articles drawing on hundreds of Mr. Miller’s emails to assert that in the run-up to the 2016 presidential election, he promoted white nationalist literature and ‘racist immigration stories.’”

Separately, Bloomberg reported that Miller was the “driving force” behind an Office of Legal Counsel memo retracting state responsibilities towards individuals with disabilities. According to the article, Miller was concerned that settlement agreements requiring states to move individuals from institutions to in-home or community-based services would increase homelessness, contrary to President Trump’s 2025 executive order pressuring local governments to move homeless people to institutions. (The White House and DOJ both denied Miller had a hand in the OLC memo, and DOJ denied his involvement in the SPLC investigation.)

Something fishy at Antitrust

For months, there have been stories of political influence and lobbying at the Antitrust Division, leading to sudden resolutions of major cases like the Juniper/HPE merger and the Live Nation/Ticketmaster trial. In February, Assistant Attorney General Abigail Slater left the department. While she didn’t cite a specific reason for her departure, it came after months of clashes with Blanche and former Attorney General Bondi, including an episode where Bondi’s then-chief of staff fired two Slater aides who disagreed with department leadership on settling Juniper/HPE.

This month, department leaders have taken further steps to bring the Antitrust Division under their control. On June 9, Blanche put Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward in charge of the division until a new AAG is confirmed. Woodward had been instrumental in pushing the Juniper/HPE settlement through, overriding pushback from career staff. Within weeks of heading the Antitrust Division, Woodward made it clear to staff attorneys that he preferred to settle cases over going to trial.

News also broke last month that the White House was deeply involved in the Live Nation/Ticketmaster settlement that took the country by surprise. According to NBC News, President Trump spoke with the CEO of Live Nation ahead of the settlement and lawyers from the White House Counsel’s Office were involved in negotiating the terms. DOJ and more than 30 states had been building the case for years, only for the department’s political leadership to announce a settlement after the first week of trial. Likewise, on June 12, DOJ leadership approved Paramount’s acquisition of Warner Bros before career attorneys could weigh in. Staff attorneys had reportedly been leaning towards challenging the deal.

President Trump is expected to nominate Adam Candeub to be the next AAG. Candeub currently serves as general counsel of the Federal Communications Commission — the same FCC that had pressured ABC into firing Jimmy Kimmel — and is a well-known critic of Big Tech for allegedly censoring free speech online.

Here are a few other things you might’ve missed:

• Despite telling lawmakers at a congressional hearing that the Anti-Weaponization Fund would not move forward, Acting Attorney General Blanche has refused to formalize the decision in writing. A day after Blanche’s hearing, Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward indicated on X that DOJ was looking for alternative ways to compensate so-called “weaponization victims.” The Atlantic reported that DOJ and White House officials were exploring various methods behind the scenes. On June 19, a court deadline for Blanche to submit verification that the cancellation of the Anti-Weaponization Fund passed without a signed declaration. Meanwhile, Blanche is reportedly assuring Senators concerned about the fund that he is willing to formally kill it.

• On June 9, DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel issued an opinion finding that the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission violated federal civil rights law by using the disparate impact theory of discrimination.

  • In a statement to CBS, Justice Connection said, “Discriminatory outcomes don’t always result from explicit animus, which is why disparate impact liability has been a cornerstone of civil rights enforcement for decades. Requiring plaintiffs in all civil rights cases to demonstrate discriminatory intent is contrary to Supreme Court law, and will lead to a sharp increase in unchecked discrimination.”

• Reuters reported that 96% of clemency grants under this administration have not followed longstanding DOJ guidelines. Instead, clemency is highly dependent on an applicant’s access to Presidenoot Trump’s inner circle and their appeal to the president’s own sense of victimization.

• DOJ announced that it will rename the Environment and Natural Resources Division to the Energy and Natural Resources Division to “advance U.S. energy dominance.”

  • In a Justice Connection statement denouncing the move, advisory committee member Andy Mergen said the “name change is best understood not as serving the public, for whom the department works, but instead as catering to the priorities of the President and an Administration that has cynically invoked ‘national security’ and so-called energy ‘emergencies’ to evade compliance with environmental laws.”

• The Office of the Inspector General provided Senate Republicans with highly-sensitive interview transcripts from the 2016 Russia probe, setting a precedent that breaks its own disclosure rules.

  • As Justice Connection told Bloomberg, “If a whistleblower or a witness or a crime victim or a former employee who the IG has no authority to compel thinks the inspector general will share their information with Congress, they will be less likely to cooperate with the inspector general.”

Justice Connection today sent a letter to members of the Senate Judiciary Committee signed by more than 1,200 former DOJ employees spanning 14 administrations and thousands of years of collective experience, opposing the nomination of Todd Blanche to serve as Attorney General.

While many will discuss the corruption and abuses at the Justice Department under Blanche’s leadership — and rightly so — this letter highlights the dangerous degradation of DOJ’s apolitical career workforce.

The letter’s signatories include former officials who served during Republican and Democratic administrations, including dozens of U.S. attorneys, component heads, and other senior leaders, many of whom led major offices across the department and FBI. They also include signatories who worked in 77 U.S. Attorney’s Offices, dozens of whom worked in Blanche’s former office in the Southern District of New York.

The Senate Judiciary Committee has scheduled a confirmation hearing for Todd Blanche on July 15 and 16. This letter urges committee members to reject his nomination.

Read the letter

On May 27, the Office of Personnel Management proposed a governmentwide nondisclosure agreement (NDA) that federal agencies would require new and existing employees to sign.

The notice claims that the NDA will “promote consistency across Government, better protect confidential information, and better inform Federal employees of their rights and obligations regarding confidential information.” In reality, the NDA would create a new blanket prohibition on disclosure that indiscriminately sweeps in speech protected by the First Amendment – an attempt to intimidate public servants into silence as they witness unprecedented levels of abuse and corruption.

As we told Bloomberg, “the purpose of this isn’t to protect individuals or serve the public interest. It’s to help the president avoid bad press and cover up abuses of power that only people on the inside can see and reveal.”

A government of, by, and for the people relies on transparency. Self-government rests on the principle that what the government does is presumptively the public’s right to know, except in some specific and justified exceptions. This NDA turns that presumption on its head, asserting that government employees must be contractually bound to keep routine government information secret.

That is why Justice Connection – with assistance from the Washington Litigation Group – submitted formal comments opposing the draft NDA. You can read the full submission below. We urge our fellow DOJ alums to weigh in during the notice-and-comment period as well by this Friday, June 26, urging OPM to reject this proposed NDA.

Submit a comment

One of the basic obligations of public service required by the federal government is that employees “shall disclose waste, fraud, abuse, and corruption to appropriate authorities.”

As Aaron Zelinsky highlighted in a Justice Connection Substack post, the Inspector General’s own whistleblower protection page states that when the corruption is coming from within (or from the top of) the Justice Department, “DOJ employees may disclose information to anyone, including non-governmental audiences, unless the information is classified or specifically prohibited by law from release.” (FBI employees have more limited disclosure protections based on the individual to whom they disclose.)

Fulfilling this obligation is not easy. Contrary to its claims to being the “most transparent administration in American history,” this administration has choked off whistleblowing avenues and slandered many who’ve come forward. That’s why Justice Connection’s Pro Bono Legal Network connects DOJ employees to lawyers who can help. It’s also why we partnered with Protect Democracy to develop a practical guide to help employees speak to reporters – while protecting themselves and respecting the law.

But if this NDA rule is finalized, blowing the whistle will become even harder. Please take a few minutes to join us in lodging your objection.

Read Justice Connection's comment

“We absolutely owe an apology to any victim’s name any time it’s inadvertently released,” former Attorney General Pamela Bondi told the House Oversight Committee on May 29, 2026, about the public release of identifying information of victims in the so-called Epstein files. Yet apologies ring hollow where the actions of this Justice Department’s leadership have repeatedly and deliberately demonstrated just the opposite to crime victims in general, and especially to those who are victims of sexual assault.

Since they first took the helm at DOJ, then-AG Bondi and then-Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, who has been nominated to become the next Attorney General, have engaged in a pattern of conduct that, at best, has been devoid of humanity for victims, and at worst, has flagrantly violated their statutory rights. Under their leadership, the department baselessly dismissed a case involving sexual abuse of unaccompanied minors, terminated grant funds intended to provide services to sexual and domestic violence victims, and restored firearms rights to domestic abusers seemingly without consulting the abuse victims.

Both Bondi and Blanche know better.

Bondi started her career, like I did, as a state prosecutor in Florida — where victims’ rights, including the right to dignity and freedom from intimidation, are robust. She acknowledged the importance of victims’ rights as she ascended to the position of Florida Attorney General, and then again during her confirmation process before the U.S. Senate.

Blanche, also like me, served as a career DOJ prosecutor. As federal prosecutors, we were bound by the Crime Victims’ Rights Act, codified under 18 U.S.C. § 3771, which guarantees victims the right “to be treated with fairness and with respect for the victim’s dignity and privacy.” We were also bound by the Attorney General Guidelines for Victim and Witness Assistance (AG Guidelines), which were born from a 1982 Congressional Directive to the Attorney General to promulgate the first set of such guidelines. The purpose was to address a “criminal justice system that was unresponsive to the needs of crime victims.” See notes to 18 U.S.C. § 1512 (the victim-witness tampering statute). The AG Guidelines have been revised over time by career officials – the last time in 2023 – to reflect changes in law, the impact of technology, and lessons learned over time. But as another thumb in the eye of crime victims, this DOJ’s leadership archived the AG Guidelines, abandoning the requirement that prosecutors be annually trained on their statutory obligations to crime victims.

Federal prosecutors have more than guidelines and statutes to shape good practice. Toward the end of my tenure at the department, in 2024, I served as the primary author of DOJ’s Framework for Prosecutors to Strengthen Our National Response to Sexual Assault & Domestic Violence. It is a consensus document of more than 120 prosecutors and other law enforcement experts from throughout the country at all levels of government that lays out a blueprint for building provable cases in a manner that ensures victims are treated with humanity, while upholding defendants’ due process rights. It devotes an entire section to encouraging prosecutors to “Use Legal Tools to Protect Victim Safety and Privacy,” further underscoring how paramount the treatment of victims is to the role of the prosecutor.

Treating victims well is not just good practice. A federal prosecutor’s obligation to uphold victims’ rights is part and parcel of upholding the oath to the Constitution and adhering to the rule of law. The Justice Department can’t keep the country safe and hold offenders accountable if victims are not willing to trust prosecutors and investigators enough to come forward and work with them. Crime victims certainly won’t do that if the Justice Department continues to treat victims as this administration has. Victims can see the gap between what this department’s leadership says and what it does, and the failed Epstein redactions are the clearest example of that. This is not a controversial topic. DOJ leadership should be shining a light on serving victims rather than relegating them to darkness. Not only is it the right thing to do, but it more effectively serves justice, the law, and the community.

That is how I practiced as a federal prosecutor and how I trained my colleagues throughout the country to practice during the 16 years that I served in the department. During almost 14 of those years, I handled cases involving marginalized victims. I specialized in prosecuting sex crimes committed by law enforcement and other government actors, having handled more of those cases than anyone in the country to date. I therefore know what it is like to work with victims who, like the Epstein victims, are among the most vulnerable. And I know how crucial it is to protect their privacy and remain cognizant of all they experienced and will experience as their cases play out.

The defendants I prosecuted exploited their government authority to prey upon those they thought no one would believe simply because of their status in life. Like the Epstein victims, the victims in my cases feared intimidation and retaliation by offenders who had a significant amount of power over them. They felt shame for not fighting back or for submitting under threat of violence or other perverse consequence. They felt embarrassment at the prospect of their loved ones learning about what they endured.

Of course, that shame and embarrassment should be placed squarely on the offenders. Yet it explains why victims are reluctant to report in the first instance, and later hesitant to remain part of the criminal justice process, particularly when that process revictimizes them. The consequence is justice denied for the victims as well as for the perpetrators, who will not be held to account. When a victim was willing to come forward, my colleagues and I did everything we could to lessen the trauma of the process, treat them with dignity, protect their privacy, and keep them safe. DOJ’s leadership should be doing the same.

Instead, they have done the opposite. They’ve shelved training requirements, ignored statutes and policies, and cast aside processes that protect victims and shield their privacy. Redacting voluminous electronic files like the Epstein files is no doubt a large task. But as my former DOJ colleague explained, Bondi and Blanche dismantled institutional electronic infrastructure that could have helped manage the Epstein files disclosures, and did nothing to replace it. The ramifications of failing to properly redact the files were nothing if not foreseeable: The document release apparently included more than 6,000 instances of unredacted references to victims’ names, other personally identifiable information, and nude photographs, leading to renewed threats, harassment, and intimidation of victims.

Bondi was right when she told the Oversight Committee that the release of even one victim’s name is a “failure.” Indeed, this department’s leadership spectacularly failed these victims, revictimizing them yet again. The consequences go far beyond what the Epstein victims are currently experiencing. The botched release of the Epstein files — which was overseen by Blanche, according to Bondi’s testimony before Congress — serves as a shrill and deafening deterrent to any victim who may want to summon the strength to come forward and trust the department, but will now choose not to do so. Anyone can end up a victim of a crime, whether it be a law enforcement officer who is assaulted, a teenager who is sexually abused, or a public official who is threatened with violence.

The American people deserve an Attorney General and Justice Department leadership who abide by the law and understand the importance of upholding victims’ rights. Otherwise, we will have a Department of Justice in name only.

Fara Gold spent more than 20 years in government service as a state and federal prosecutor. During her nearly 16 years at DOJ, she served in the Civil Rights Division and in the Office on Violence Against Women. Due to her expertise, she was named the Civil Rights Division’s first Senior Sex Crimes Counsel. She started her career in Florida at the Broward County State Attorney’s Office.

The ping of my work phone jolted me awake seconds after I’d fallen asleep one night in late 2024. The local police department was requesting our collaboration on an ongoing barricade situation that began earlier in the day, in which an armed individual was refusing the commands of officers to exit a lodging. We were instructed to report to the staging location immediately.

Expecting this might happen, I had laid out my crisis negotiator clothing and tactical gear before I went to bed. When the alert came through, I was ready and driving to the staging location within 20 minutes, coffee in hand. (A lesson I learned early on was to always bring coffee. Barricades may last longer than you expect and adrenaline depletes.)

In every barricade scenario, FBI personnel must apply sound judgment in split second decisions and adapt to each unique circumstance as it unfolds. SWAT operators develop tactical strategies and adjust accordingly. Negotiators employ active listening skills and evaluate indicators of change. The on-scene commander — typically the Special Agent in Charge or Assistant Special Agent in Charge of the local field office — weighs all of this information and makes decisions.

Should negotiators have more time to talk with the subject? Is tactical action approved? What legal framework must be considered? The on-scene commander has the final say.

On this particular day, the team navigated several instances of elevated risk. All our training and all the work we put in through the night culminated in the three words we all wanted to hear: “Subject in custody.”

I let out a sigh and my muscles relaxed. The highway was reopened. Businesses and community life reemerged as the sun rose.

The professionalism of my colleagues and their empathy for human life — regardless of how a person was acting in a moment of crisis or what actions had led to the situation — filled me with pride.

That result is only possible when there’s steady leadership, tactical patience, and mutual trust between the entire FBI team on scene. These things are established through years of experience and rigorous training that are passed to the next generation of special agents, intelligence analysts, and professional staff.

Fast-forward to today.

The on-scene commander is no longer with the FBI.

I, one of the two negotiators, am no longer with the FBI.

Both gone before retirement, with years left to give in service to our country.

We are witnessing FBI leaders and other professionals being pushed out of the Bureau, in offices across the country.

Looking Back, but Moving Ahead

In late spring of 2025, I witnessed the political targeting of the on-scene commander of the barricade situation, resulting in his resignation. His abrupt departure happened a few days before my last day in the office. I had chosen to resign when it became clear to me that upper FBI leadership was using the power of the FBI to undermine justice. But witnessing this particular political targeting escalated my concern.

I walked through the office on those last days as if I were stumbling through the smoke of a house fire. I was witnessing something I never could have imagined before: political leaders decapitating the FBI’s career leadership structure and using the Bureau’s vast authority to serve the interests of those in power.

Leadership positions are not replaced overnight. These positions take years of development so that when leaders are put into high-risk situations, such as barricade situations, they are equipped to handle the complexity and make potentially life-altering decisions with confidence.

This needed time of development is true for all the positions within the FBI.

During the first year of this administration, over 3,500 people left the FBI, including officials who were forced out or summarily dismissed for partisan reasons, and those who resigned due to untenable circumstances.

One of them — former intelligence analyst Philip Fields — created a dashboard to help the public see the numbers. But while tracking the departures is crucial, the numbers don’t capture what it means to have far less institutional knowledge and the experience in our premiere investigative agency, at a time when we face increasing and evolving threats to our country.

That is why I joined Justice Connection’s FBI Support Network advisory committee. We are a group of former FBI employees dedicated to addressing the unique challenges facing the FBI’s workforce. We are here to connect them to legal, mental health, and employment support — and help them with any other needs they have.

We are also speaking out against these attacks on the Bureau and raising awareness about the importance of its mission-critical work. I am honored to join this endeavor to support those who have devoted their lives to protecting others.

I still have faith in the rank-and-file of the FBI, who embody the once core values and the FBI motto: “Fidelity, Bravery, Integrity.” I don’t know what will happen to the Bureau in the future. But during this time of unprecedented assault on its workforce, I know that the professionals who remain need support from those of us on the outside.