Ex-DOJ officials reflect on Trump's transformation of the institution

Amna Nawaz:

Justice Department officials appointed by President Donald Trump have made sweeping changes since he returned to office. They redefined the focus of key divisions and challenged legal norms. And thousands of career lawyers have resigned or been fired.

Former Justice Department officials say those changes are transforming not only what the department does, but what its leaders expect from its employees.

Justice correspondent Ali Rogin asked several former DOJ attorneys and leaders to reflect on what they have seen and what they believe it means for the future of the institution.

Kyle Boynton, Former Federal Prosecutor:

My name is Kyle Boynton. Prior to leaving the DOJ, I was a prosecutor with the Criminal Section of the Civil Rights Division. I started my career with the Justice Department in 2010 as a special agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Anam Petit, Former Immigration Judge:

My name is Anam Petit. I was an immigration judge within the Department of Justice prior to my termination in September 2025.

Brendan Ballou, Former Federal Prosecutor:

My name is Brendan Ballou. I'm a former special counsel in the Antitrust Division of the Justice Department.

Sean Murphy, Former Federal Prosecutor:

My name is Sean P. Murphy. I'm a former assistant United States attorney. I most recently worked with the U.S. attorney's office for the District of Puerto Rico, but I work on a detail with the Capitol siege section out of the U.S. attorney's office for the District of Columbia.

Kyle Boynton:

The Justice Department has long been a place and had a tradition of being apolitical in its approach to things. And I was increasingly seeing decisions being made within the Civil Rights Division for political reasons. And that troubled me.

Brendan Ballou:

I left because I had spent two years prosecuting January 6 rioters. On the very first day of Donald Trump's second term, he issued a pardon for over 1,500 people who were accused of attacking the Capitol that day and the people inside.

So it was obvious to me that Donald Trump was going to try to use the Department of Justice to enact vengeance, to enact violence against those who opposed him. And I thought that I could do more good on the outside than I could on the inside.

Sean Murphy:

I decided that I needed to leave the Department of Justice because I saw the writing on the wall. There came a time shortly after Pam Bondi's confirmation as attorney general of the United States that she sent out a series of memos.

One of those memos in particular said that, as AUSAs, we were expected to be the president's lawyers and do whatever he asked of us. And failure to do so would be to deprive the president of his attorneys. That didn't sit well with me then. It doesn't sit well with me now.

Brendan Ballou:

The harm that this administration is doing to the Department of Justice and the rule of law generally in America is generational. It is going to take decades to recover from the damage that they have caused.

Anam Petit:

We have seen this administration hire many new deportation judges, as they're calling them, instead of immigration judges, to fill the role for the many, many immigration judges who they have since fired. And I am very concerned about the quality of these candidates.

Kyle Boynton:

We are dealing with extremists who are making decisions that the Justice Department should act on ideologies, should act in the interest of particular ideological beliefs.

And I think that is what is so dangerous about this moment is this extremist view that you're not holding a position of public trust, but you are actually a political actor who is supposed to be using the Justice Department for political reasons.

Anam Petit:

I'm very worried that we're not going to be able to attract the same level of talent that the Department of Justice has historically been able to attract.

I'm also really worried about the lack of trust that we're getting from our constituents, from the taxpayers, from the American people, that we're just not viewed with that neutrality and as that pinnacle of fairness anymore, because we're just marred by politics.

Sean Murphy:

I don't know if you can legislate your way out of the degradation of the rule of law. We will have to have people in charge who respect that separation between the president and the attorney general and allow the U.S. attorneys around the country and the Justice Department in general to pursue justice without fear or favor.

Brendan Ballou:

The vast majority of folks in the Department of Justice, I continue to believe, are trying to do the right thing, but it is going to be an enormous challenge to undo the damage to the soul of the Department of Justice. And I think, for that reason, a lot of folks who would return to DOJ without question this time around might not.

Amna Nawaz:

And Ali Rogin joins us now for more.

Ali, want to pick up on the concern we heard there about the DOJ being able to continue to attract top talent. You have been looking into this. And what have you found?

Ali Rogin:

I have been speaking with law students over the past few days from all over the country on the condition of anonymity so that they can speak freely.

And what I have been hearing from many of them is that they would be interested in working for the Department of Justice over a president from either party, but not this Department of Justice. Several said they could not defend some of the policies that this White House and the Department of Justice have been asking attorneys to defend.

Many of them cited holding immigrants and deporting undocumented immigrants without due process. This is what one recent law school graduate told me. He had actually been planning to apply to the Department of Justice until up until a year ago.

He said -- quote -- "There have been many actions by the DOJ that have significantly tainted its reputation. And I am not willing to risk any harm to my reputation or be in a position where I may be asked to do something I know is wrong."

Another student from a relatively conservative law school told me that she wouldn't want to be associated with what she called a poor work product coming out of the Department of Justice. Recently, she shared an example with me of a filing that looks, frankly, more like a TRUTH Social post than it does an official legal document.

It has random words capitalized like President Trump likes to do in his posts and references to "Trump Derangement Syndrome." Now, Amna, I should point out this -- I did not go out and conduct a poll, so I really can't make any sweeping conclusions here.

But what I did hear is a better sense of how some students who would have otherwise applied to work at the DOJ are thinking about public service now.

Amna Nawaz:

And for the students who are still planning to apply to work for the DOJ, what are they telling?

Ali Rogin:

Yes, I heard from many of them as well. And some of them said they felt that they still had a duty to serve. One told me that criminals still need to be prosecuted.

Another said he saw the recruiting crisis at the DOJ as an opportunity, because they have begun accepting lawyers strait out of law school, when previously they did not do that. Several also told me that they were interested in working for the DOJ,but at a state U.S. attorney's office outside of Washington, and therefore they hope insulated from some of the politics.

I heard from one student at a Midwest law school who is currently interning in a U.S. attorneys office. He told me -- quote -- "I have found everybody in this office to be professional and nonpolitical. Regardless of what may be going on in D.C., I find the work I'm doing to be important, fulfilling and non-controversial."

Amna Nawaz:

Of course, as all of your reporting, you have gone to DOJ for comment on all of this. What do they say to you?

Ali Rogin:

Yes.

Of the former Department of Justice officials that I spoke to and what they said, a spokesperson said -- quote -- "It should come as no surprise that those who took part in Biden's weaponization of DOJ would claim that righting those wrongs is, ironically, weaponization" and that "those who were fired were fired for a reason."

The spokesperson also said that the DOJ has been able to achieve policy victories without the supposed -- quote -- "exodus of anti-Trump prosecutors the media idolized," although it's been well reported that the number of attorneys leading leaving the DOJ and the rest of the federal government is outpacing new hires.

And on the question of what law students are doing, this spokesperson noted that there have been many new lawyers that have joined the Department of Justice and added -- quote -- "We look forward to welcoming many more lawyers, including young attorneys, who understand our constitutional system, where DOJ is accountable to the executive branch."

Amna Nawaz:

All right, switching gears now a little bit, I want to turn to some news today about a foiled plot to attack the Ultimate Fighting Championship event that took place at the White House this weekend.

What do we know about that?

Ali Rogin:

That's right.

This morning, FBI Director Kash Patel posted on X that a plot was -- quote -- "stopped cold by the FBI and law enforcement partners" and that multiple individuals are now in custody. According to an arrest document, one of the individuals is a 19-year-old Ohio man named Tycen Proper who said he had been planning an attack with a group of political extremists.

Proper's mother is the one that had called law enforcement to flag his behavior. He'd been communicating with individuals who she said seemed to have ultrareligious and anti-government views and that he had purchased firearms.

This group had been planning to fly drones laden with explosives over the event and then fire at people in the dispersing crowd after the explosives had detonated. So far, Amna, we know that five individuals have been arrested.

Amna Nawaz:

So, five individuals were that -- was that the entire group planning this attack? Or could there be more people at large?

Ali Rogin:

There could be more people at large. There have been reports today that there are up to 23 people who were involved.

In any event, FBI Director Patel's counterparts in other federal law enforcement agencies have criticized his disclosure of this investigation at such an early stage. The deputy director of the U.S. Secret Service today told reporters that revealing the active investigation as it's ongoing could really undermine its integrity.

He said that the fight attendees were never in harm's way, but that talking about it, this kind of multistate probe at this early stage, is premature. And he had an admonishment that seemed directed at Patel.

Matthew Quinn, Secret Service Deputy Director:

Don't choke on your own smoke. Anyone that believes that case was worked in a bubble is naive. I will tell you, the Secret Service led that investigation from the beginning. I will tell you that it's ongoing. In order to maintain the integrity of the investigation and the security plan, we chose not to leak it.

Ali Rogin:

Just to underscore, that's the number two at the Secret Service accusing the FBI director of a leak that could endanger an ongoing investigation, Amna.

Amna Nawaz:

Worth underscoring.

Justice correspondent Ali Rogin, terrific reporting. Thank you.

Ali Rogin:

You bet.