When President Donald Trump spoke to employees of the Department of Justice Friday afternoon, he addressed many of the lawyers tasked with defending his policies in court across more than 120 lawsuits.
For some of those attorneys it’s been a challenging week, as judges in several cases have appeared skeptical of the government’s arguments.
While defending policies like the government’s mass layoffs or the Pentagon’s transgender service member ban, a number of DOJ attorneys have found themselves at a loss for words when trying to answer the questions asked of them.
“So, people with gender dysphoria can’t be honest, humble, or have integrity. You think that’s demeaning to people with gender dysphoria?” U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes asked a DOJ attorney on Wednesday during a hearing on the service member ban.
“I can’t answer that question,” he responded.
Reyes later rebuked each of the DOJ lawyers after they admitted that none of them had read any of the scientific studies used to support the ban in sworn court filings.
During a contentious hearing in Maryland on Wednesday about Trump’s mass firings — which eventually led the judge overseeing the case to order approximately 20,000 government employees be reinstated — a DOJ lawyer couldn’t answer when a judge pressed him to confirm how many employees had been terminated.
President Donald Trump speaks at the Department of Justice in Washington, Mar. 14, 2025.
Andrew Harnik/Getty Images
“More than 50 or less than 50? … More than 100 or less than 100? … Less than 1,000?” Judge James Bredar asked, to which the attorney replied that he couldn’t make an estimate at that time.
“You don’t know? … Does anyone in the government know?” the judge continued to press, only for the government’s attorney to again say he doesn’t know.
For a hearing on an emergency order to block an executive order against the law firm Perkins Coie, the Department of Justice opted to send Chad Mizelle, Attorney General Pam Bondi’s chief of staff, to argue on behalf of the government. Mizelle’s full-throated defense of the policy — which bans lawyers from the firm from entering any government building — led Judge Beryl Howell to remark that the sweeping nature of some of his arguments sent “chills down my spine.”
“When you say that if the president, in his view, takes the position that an individual or an organization or a company is operating a way that is not in the nation’s interests, he can issue an executive order like this and take steps to bar that individual, that entity, that company from doing any business with the government, terminate whatever contracts, they’ve got, bar them from federal buildings?” Howell said.
“I mean, that’s a pretty extraordinary power for the president to exercise,” the judge said.
“If he made a finding that there’s a national security risk with a particular law firm, then yes,” Mizelle replied.
During Friday’s address at the Justice Department, Trump alleged, without presenting evidence, that media organizations and the Democratic Party were colluding to challenge his administration — and he urged the lawyers to fight back.
“They are horrible people. They are scum,” Trump said of those who oppose him in court. “We will have these cases where you cannot allow yourselves to be deflected. You just cannot let it happen. You have such a higher calling.”
Trump’s visit to DOJ headquarters, during which he laid out his vision for the department and repeatedly suggested his appointees should jail his political enemies, was a departure from decades of post-Watergate norms where DOJ leadership has sought to maintain an appearance of independence from the White House on criminal matters.
