Stunning number of DOJ lawyers quit rather than defend Trump agenda: report
Nearly two-thirds of the U.S. Department of Justice attorneys tasked with defending President Donald Trump's policies in court have walked off the job.
Reuters reviewed a list showing that 69 of the roughly 110 attorneys who work for the Federal Programs Branch responsible for defending Trump administration policies in court have voluntarily left Trump's election in November or have announced plans to leave.
"Many of these people came to work at Federal Programs to defend aspects of our constitutional system," said one lawyer who left the unit since Trump's election. "How could they participate in the project of tearing it down?"
The news organization confirmed the departure of all but four of those departures using court records and LinkedIn accounts, and reporters spoke to four former attorneys and three other sources familiar with the departures who said staffers had become demoralized and exhausted by the onslaught of legal challenges to administration policies.
"We've never had an administration pushing the legal envelope so quickly, so aggressively and across such a broad range of government policies and programs," said Peter Keisler, who led the Justice Department’s Civil Division under George W. Bush."The demands are intensifying at the same time that the ranks of lawyers there to defend these cases are dramatically thinning."
Some of the career lawyers feared they would be pressured to misrepresent facts or legal issues in court, according to three of the sources.
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Life under the Trump 2 Dictatorship
DOGE told regulator to ‘rubber stamp’ nuclear
A DOGE representative told the chair and top staff of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission that the agency will be expected to give “rubber stamp” approval to new reactors tested by the departments of Energy or Defense, according to three people with knowledge of a May meeting where the message was delivered.
The three people said Adam Blake, detailed to the NRC by the Department of Government Efficiency, described a new regulatory approach by NRC that would expedite nuclear safety assessments.
“DOE, DOD would approve stuff, and then NRC would be expected to just kind of rubber-stamp it,” said one of the three people, who were all granted anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.
The meeting was held after President Donald Trump signed a May 23 executive order that would supplant the NRC’s historical role as the sole agency responsible for ensuring commercial nuclear projects are safe and won’t threaten public health.
Two of the three people said Blake used the term “rubber stamp” at the meeting that included NRC Chair David Wright, senior agency staff and DOE officials. Under Trump’s executive order, the NRC could not revisit issues assessed by DOE or the Pentagon, but the people with knowledge of the meeting said Blake and DOE officials went a step further to suggest the NRC’s secondary assessment should be a foregone conclusion.
Trump’s executive order and staff departures have added to concern at the independent agency and among nuclear experts that the White House is exerting more control over the NRC’s mandate under the Atomic Energy Act of 1954 than any previous administration.
In the weeks following the “rubber stamp” comment, the NRC experienced significant upheaval, including the abrupt June 13 firing of Christopher Hanson, a Democratic commissioner originally appointed during Trump’s first term and the former chair under President Joe Biden.
The decision by Trump and top aides to insert DOE into the NRC’s statutory licensing process was spelled out in four executive orders Trump signed May 23 — prompting nuclear experts to warn of “serious consequences” if the NRC’s loss of independence erodes safety.
Trump ordered a “wholesale review” of the NRC’s reactor design and safety regulations, with a nine-month deadline for proposed changes and final action in another nine months. The order said commission reviews of new designs must be completed within 18 months, with shorter deadlines set as appropriate.
A committee of at least 20 people would perform the review, including representatives of DOGE and the Office of Management and Budget, headed by Russ Vought, the architect of Project 2025’s conservative blueprint for shrinking the federal government.
Leadership at Idaho National Laboratory, which has been one of the centers of DOE’s research on nuclear reactors, has said DOE can perform safety evaluations of new reactors, and in doing so move more quickly and efficiently than the NRC.
The lab sent a proposal to members of Congress in April. The DOE process is viewed by industry “as being much shorter and more straightforward than NRC’s licensing process,” the INL authors said.
Trump directed the creation of an “expedited pathway to approve reactor designs” that had been tested and certified either by DOE or the Defense Department. Under the Trump order, safety designs for new reactors approved by the two agencies could not be revisited by the NRC unless new issues arose.
Click on the link for the full article
A DOGE representative told the chair and top staff of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission that the agency will be expected to give “rubber stamp” approval to new reactors tested by the departments of Energy or Defense, according to three people with knowledge of a May meeting where the message was delivered.
The three people said Adam Blake, detailed to the NRC by the Department of Government Efficiency, described a new regulatory approach by NRC that would expedite nuclear safety assessments.
“DOE, DOD would approve stuff, and then NRC would be expected to just kind of rubber-stamp it,” said one of the three people, who were all granted anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.
The meeting was held after President Donald Trump signed a May 23 executive order that would supplant the NRC’s historical role as the sole agency responsible for ensuring commercial nuclear projects are safe and won’t threaten public health.
Two of the three people said Blake used the term “rubber stamp” at the meeting that included NRC Chair David Wright, senior agency staff and DOE officials. Under Trump’s executive order, the NRC could not revisit issues assessed by DOE or the Pentagon, but the people with knowledge of the meeting said Blake and DOE officials went a step further to suggest the NRC’s secondary assessment should be a foregone conclusion.
Trump’s executive order and staff departures have added to concern at the independent agency and among nuclear experts that the White House is exerting more control over the NRC’s mandate under the Atomic Energy Act of 1954 than any previous administration.
In the weeks following the “rubber stamp” comment, the NRC experienced significant upheaval, including the abrupt June 13 firing of Christopher Hanson, a Democratic commissioner originally appointed during Trump’s first term and the former chair under President Joe Biden.
The decision by Trump and top aides to insert DOE into the NRC’s statutory licensing process was spelled out in four executive orders Trump signed May 23 — prompting nuclear experts to warn of “serious consequences” if the NRC’s loss of independence erodes safety.
Trump ordered a “wholesale review” of the NRC’s reactor design and safety regulations, with a nine-month deadline for proposed changes and final action in another nine months. The order said commission reviews of new designs must be completed within 18 months, with shorter deadlines set as appropriate.
A committee of at least 20 people would perform the review, including representatives of DOGE and the Office of Management and Budget, headed by Russ Vought, the architect of Project 2025’s conservative blueprint for shrinking the federal government.
Leadership at Idaho National Laboratory, which has been one of the centers of DOE’s research on nuclear reactors, has said DOE can perform safety evaluations of new reactors, and in doing so move more quickly and efficiently than the NRC.
The lab sent a proposal to members of Congress in April. The DOE process is viewed by industry “as being much shorter and more straightforward than NRC’s licensing process,” the INL authors said.
Trump directed the creation of an “expedited pathway to approve reactor designs” that had been tested and certified either by DOE or the Defense Department. Under the Trump order, safety designs for new reactors approved by the two agencies could not be revisited by the NRC unless new issues arose.
Click on the link for the full article
