A wave of former Justice Department employees is reportedly leaving behind more than just empty seats, revealing a glimpse of life inside the Trump administration.
Farewell letters paint a portrait of an agency appearing to buckle under President Donald Trump’s second-term demands, with some insiders warning of “potentially irreversible damage,” according to Axios.
The Justice Connection, a network of DOJ and FBI alumni, has been collecting the notes from those who have walked out.
Contributors describe collapsing ethics, corrosive pressure, and a toxic workplace. Executive Director Stacey Young said in a statement that staff are “being asked to put loyalty to the president over the Constitution, the rule of law, and their professional ethical obligations.”
Carrie A. Syme, a former trial attorney, wrote in a March farewell that the “current incarnation” of the department “defines ‘justice’ in a way that I do not recognize.” She pleaded with the remaining staff to remember that “the vast majority of DOJ attorneys are people of good will who are trying to maintain a true sense of justice.”
For some, the concerns are more immediate. Devon Flanagan, formerly a trial attorney in the Wildlife and Marine Resources Section, warned that the damage will only accelerate as more employees “find these stressful and demeaning conditions untenable.”
Three assistant United States attorneys who refused to dismiss New York Mayor Eric Adams’ case put their objections in writing before they walked. In their April letter to Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, they said the department had “decided that obedience supersedes all else.” The push to drop the charges sparked a broader internal revolt. “There is no greater privilege than to work for an institution whose mandate is to do the right thing, the right way, for the right reasons,” they wrote. “We will not abandon this principle to keep our jobs.”
Others say they didn’t even get the choice to resign. Anam Rahman Petit, an immigration judge who said she was terminated without explanation, called the staffing changes “a systemic effort to reshape the bench with individuals more likely to deny cases without regard for due process.”
Inside the Office of Immigration Litigation, trial attorney Joseph Darrow wrote that firing whistleblower Erez Reuveni was “a warning and act of intimidation against us all.”
The departures aren’t limited to whistleblowers or dissenters. They include prosecutors who handled cases tied to the Jan. 6 riot. One of the highest-profile firings was Maurene Comey, who worked on the Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell cases and is the daughter of Trump antagonist James Comey. She has sued the government, writing in her farewell, “If a career prosecutor can be fired without reason, fear may seep into the decisions of those who remain. Fear is the tool of a tyrant, wielded to suppress independent thought.”
Still, the DOJ’s own buyout program accounts for thousands more departures. Justice Connection estimates more than 4,000 employees have exited following those offers.
Attorney General Pam Bondi’s early move to create a “Weaponization Working Group” signaled the direction she planned to take the department, targeting offices that previously investigated Trump. She has echoed Trump’s claims that he was a victim of lawfare and Deep State sabotage.
And for some, the problem isn’t ideology—it’s incompetence. Trial attorney Barbara Schwabauer, who resigned in August, wrote that her departure wasn’t due to “a ‘deep-state’ refusal to work with this administration.” Instead, she blamed “hollow leadership that disregards longstanding interpretations of civil rights law, upends Division and Departmental norms, and values perceived loyalty above the meritocratic principles it claims to espouse.”
The DOJ did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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