A federal judge’s rebuke of President Donald Trump’s Justice Department exposes a widening credibility crisis for its attorneys, former federal prosecutor Harry Litman argued.
“It’s hard to imagine any more withering upbraiding of the Department,” Litman wrote Thursday in his Talking Feds Substack, analyzing U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes’s opinion concerning the East Potomac Golf Course.
“Reyes’s opinion represents something far more damning and encompassing: a frontal attack on the credibility of the entire Department of Justice,” he told readers.
The dispute centers on conflicting accounts from Trump and government lawyers. Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward told the court there was no plan to close the course, Litman wrote, while Trump publicly announced a November 15 closure.
“So who do I believe?” Reyes asked. “Do I believe the President of the United States, or do I believe you?”
According to Litman, a subsequent DOJ filing acknowledged that Interior Department officials were developing a closure plan following Trump’s directive.
“The core problem that has brought the Department to the abyss with so many federal judges is not their antipathy towards Trump,” Litman wrote Thursday.
Instead, he argued, Trump’s shifting demands leave government lawyers struggling to match the president’s statements with the obligations to the courts.
Litman described the damage as extending beyond a single case, with judges increasingly questioning the department’s representations.
“It’s taken Trump, Bondi, and Blanche only 20 months to eviscerate the courts’ previous high regard for Executive Branch lawyers,” he concluded. “The fallout to the Justice Department’s effectiveness, and therefore to its mission of public safety, will persist for years to come.”
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