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While the second Trump presidency has received lots of attention for those it has fired, including within the Justice Department, little attention has been paid to the new US Attorney appointments.
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Justice in Brief
In the Eastern District of California, a man was convicted of strapping a back pack around a toilet in a church to give the impression that it was a bomb. The intent was to disrupt church services.
In the District of Alaska, a man entered a guilty plea to the production of child pornography after he distributed videos of a young boy performing sexual acts.
The US Attorneys on the southwest US border announced a total of 960 criminal defendants charged with a range of immigration offenses over the previous week. Most involved illegal re-entry into the United States. That is at least 120 more than the prior week.
Updates…
The White House fired an Assistant US Attorney in the Central District of California. This occurred without consulting the US Attorney. The only apparent reason for the firing was that the assistant was part of a team investigating a Trump campaign supporter. According to the White House, this lifts the number of fired prosecutors over 50.
A judge in the Southern District of New York dismissed the case against New York City Mayor Eric Adams with prejudice. The Justice Department had sought the dismissal without prejudice. The court’s action means the Justice Department cannot re-file the charges in the future.
The Justice Department announced this week that it would seek the death penalty against Luigi Mangione if he is convicted of murdering health insurance CEO Brian Thompson.
Evidence came to light this week that the Justice Department under Merrick Garland might not have been weaponized to the extent the current Justice Department claims. Apparently, the Garland Justice Department declined to prosecutor Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton for bribery and other public corruption offenses. Paxton, a strong Trump supporter, was certainly an “enemy” of the Biden Administration. Yet the decision was made not to prosecute Paxton, who himself has loftier political ambitions.
In an unusual move, Senate Democrats have asked for a confirmation hearing on the nomination of Ed Martin as US Attorney for the District of Columbia. Most nominees for US Attorney are confirmed without a hearing.
An appeals court affirmed the District Court’s decision that President Trump’s pardon of January 6 defendants does not include crimes unrelated to January 6. Notably, the three-judge panel had two Trump-appointed judges, one formed the majority.
How far does loyalty get you?
The Justice Department is in the midst of a significant transition that will replace the post-Watergate era philosophy. For the last 50 years at least, the Justice Department has approached its work independent from partisan independence. The key criteria was the application of facts to law. The new regime has charted a different course. Attorney General Pam Bondi states that the Department’s primary goal is to implement the President’s agenda. Just yesterday she announced the suspension of a Justice Department attorney and his supervisor for failing to zealously argue on behalf of President Trump’s deportation policy. The Acting US Attorney for the District of Columbia, Ed Martin, went further when he said that he represented the President. The change is best seen in those President Trump is appointing to United States Attorney posts. While he focused initially on filling the high-level Justice Department positions, he has now turned to US Attorneys.
President Trump made it clear that the people he appointed to federal prosecutorial positions must be loyal to him. The prototypical case is Ed Martin, the appointee for US Attorney for the District of Columbia. Martin, who represented multiple January 6 defendants, fired prosecutors who worked on those cases. He announced an investigation into one of the Biden Administration’s climate change grants that led to another long-time prosecutor to resign. Martin also posted that the office’s attorneys are “President Trump’s lawyers.” His priorities include investigating the January 6 investigation and those who threaten DOGE. It is also significant that Martin, if confirmed, would be the first DC US Attorney without prior prosecutorial experience in several decades.
President Trump made a similar appointment two weeks ago in the Northern District of New York. He appointed John Sarcone, a private attorney with little criminal experience. Sarcone, in addition to his legal work, is a Republican-party activist. In 2016, he did legal work for the Trump campaign in New York. He also did work for the federal government during the first Trump presidency. At one point, Sarcone tweeted that former President Barack Obama should be deported and that Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden should be jailed for treason. Hopefully Sarcone is just engaging in the same hyperbolic rhetoric as others within the Bondi Justice Department.
Soon after Sacrone’s appointment, the Justice Department announced that the President had appointed Alina Habba as the US Attorney for the District of New Jersey. Habba represented President Trump in multitple civil cases. She also frequently introduced him at campaign rallies. Like Sacrone, she lacks any prior prosecutorial experience. Upon her appointment, Habba quickly announced her agenda: “There is corruption, there is injustice and there is a heavy amount of crime right in Cory Booker’s backyard and under Governor Murphy and that will stop. I think Governor Murphy and Cory Booker have failed New Jersey. If you look at crime in Newark, Camden. This has been a neglected state. It is one of the most populated for its size and it needs to stop.” In another statement, she said, “If you threaten anybody, we’re going to come at you” and “If anybody thinks Elon was bad, wait for me. I’m coming for New Jersey.” In one of her first actions as Acting US Attorney, Habba asked the court to dismiss the foreign bribery case against the CEO of a New Jersey information technology company. The dismissal resulted from President Trump’s stated desire to suspend prosecutions of foreign bribery cases under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.
Not all of President Trump’s recent appointments lack prosecutorial experience but they still endorse the President’s policy views. In the Central District of California, the federal district encompassing Los Angeles, President Trump, last week, appoint Bill Essayli, a member of the California assembly, as acting US Attorney. Unlike Sacrone and Habba, Essayli has extensive criminal prosecutorial experience. He began his legal career as an assistant prosecutor in Riverside County (CA). He then moved to the US Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California where he handled a wide range of federal criminal cases. Most recently, Essayli served in the California Assembly where he was known as a pugnacious advocate for conservative policies. He particularly targeted what he perceived as “woke” policies. Upon his appointment, Essayli expressed his support for the Justice Department’s changing role. "I think the first order of business is reassuring people and reinstilling trust into the Justice Department. I think for the last few years, it's been weaponized, has been politicized, and the President's made it clear that we're going to restore trust into our law enforcement agencies and into the Department of Justice." He added that this meant pursuing immigration cases and cities that protect them.
With each of these picks, President Trump has kept his campaign promise that he would reform the Justice Department. The key requirement is that the person appointed express complete support for the President’s agenda and use the same hyperbolic rhetoric. Prosecutorial experience appears irrelevant.
The question remains open, however, how these inexperienced prosecutors will adapt to their new roles. How will the manner in which federal prosecutors perceive their role change? Prosecutor scholarship, decades ago, recognized that prosecutors fulfill dual roles. On one hand, they are ministers of justice who must approach their work from an objective perspective. On the other, they are advocates who must argue vehemently for conviction of the guilty. Since Watergate, the professional ethic of federal prosecutors has focused on the minister of justice approach. It seems that the Trump Administration prefers the advocacy approach. This change will create conflict and controversy. How well it works will only emerge in the coming months and years.
I hope you enjoyed this issue and that it made you stop and think. I would love to hear any comments, questions, concerns, or criticisms that you have. Leave a comment or send a message! Also, if you enjoyed this or if it challenged your thinking, please subscribe and share with others!
Such an interesting edition! Thank you!