Trump responds to NYT article, says it's 'very good' administration is losing legal talent

[Dulcinea]

(The Hill) President Trump on Sunday said it is “very good” that thousands of lawyers have chosen to no longer work for the administration, referring to The New York Times’s reporting on the exodus.

The Times story reported that more than 10,000 lawyers working for the federal government have left since the end of 2024 to March 2026. Many of these lawyers are “flocking to the offices of Democratic state attorneys general and nonprofits that are challenging administration policies in the courts, boosting Mr. Trump’s opponents with seasoned lawyers,” the report reads.

Trump wrote on Truth Social that the outlet “wrote a story today entitled, ‘Trump Administration Sees Striking Exodus of Legal Talent,’ as though that’s a bad thing, when actually, it’s very good.”

https://www.yahoo.com/news/politics/articles/trump-responds-nyt-article-says-221223044.html

[bucolic_frolic]

1. Neutering the law by alienating the brightest

30 years of this and no one will remember what law really meant

[SSJVegeta]

4. Only in the executive branch which is increasingly becoming a cult

They are making themselves legally irrelevant while private entities and states are having more resources to win major legal battles.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

2. Trump Administration Sees Striking Exodus of Legal Talent (New York Times Gift Article)

The departure of more than 10,000 federal lawyers has left some agencies without sufficient staff and has boosted the ranks of state attorneys general offices and advocacy groups.

Link to tweet

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/31/us/politics/trump-administration-exodus-of-lawyers.html?unlocked_article_code=1.mlA.dD5J.pYj0ffF2G-RV&smid=nytcore-ios-share

President Trump’s upheaval of the federal government has led to an exodus of more than 10,000 lawyers since the beginning of 2025, a striking loss of legal talent that has left some agencies pushing to find attorneys to carry out his agenda.

Roughly one in five lawyers who worked in the government at the end of 2024 had left by March of this year, according to a New York Times analysis of federal employment data.

Along with the usual retirements and turnover in the federal work force, the last year saw deep staffing cuts and the resignations of some staff members who objected to Mr. Trump’s policies. Their departures show how rapidly the president has eroded the image of the federal government as the gold standard for lawyers seeking public service roles......

While federal agencies brought on about 3,200 lawyers since the beginning of 2025, departures still outpaced hiring, data shows. Lawyers also exited the government at a faster rate than turnover in the overall work force. All told, the federal government employed about 37,000 civilian lawyers at the end of March, 17 percent fewer than it did at the end of 2024.

The Justice Department, which employs more than a quarter of all government lawyers, saw the largest decline in raw numbers. But other agencies — including the Department of Education, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development — lost an even greater share of attorneys.....

Some prospective applicants have also been rattled by the departures of high-profile attorneys inside the administration.

Earlier this month, the general counsel of the Treasury Department, Brian Morrissey, resigned hours after the government announced it was creating a $1.8 billion fund expected to benefit Mr. Trump’s allies, a maneuver the administration said resolved the president’s pending lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service over the leaking of his tax records. (On Friday, a federal judge reopened the case, saying she wanted to examine allegations that the deal was based on “deception.”)

[SSJVegeta]

3. Agreed. Less frivolous lawsuits and false charges

[YodaMom2]

6. Sadly, I fear the opposite is true.

Less seasoned and/or less ethical attorneys will be *more* inclined to bow to the will of Cankles Caligula and bring frivolous, ridiculous, and baseless cases. They won’t have the experience or integrity to say no.

[SSJVegeta]

7. Wouldnt that lead to more disbarrments fairly quickly? And no ability or qualifications

...to argue any case in court?

We have a very unique system in the world with juries. Because of this any frivolous case-especially those not presented in a credible fashion, is certain to be thrown out by most juries.

[YodaMom2]

8. The likelihood of failure would not prevent them from bringing cases.

The orange shitgibbon has for decades used the courts to harass people. It’s all about causing his “enemies” distress and expense, not necessarily about winning the case.

[SSJVegeta]

9. Cases still have to have standing though

With the US system, there usually has to be some credibility in order for it not to be thrown out immediately. Like so many already have been.

And this is with mostly seasoned prosecutors:

https://apnews.com/article/ice-immigration-protests-prosecutions-doj-arrests-591f155d50c13756842e033ea23f16d3

[SSJVegeta]

10. Also

....it is currently impossible for the feds to prosecute any individual without using attorneys.

No attorneys=no prosecutions. At all.

[SamuelAdams]

5. The clowns he has hired have been getting laughed out of court.

They fail to get indictments, have charges dismissed, are threatened with sanctions, make basic paperwork mistakes. There are actual crimes we need experienced lawyers to prosecute.

[cynical_idealist]

11. removing the legal justification for the position of President

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

12. Donny doesn't want any of those fancy-pants smart people telling him what to do

[maxsolomon]

13. It will be extremely difficult to rebuild the DOJ

assuming Dems ever regain the Presidency.

[FakeNoose]

14. They're leaving because they won't handle Chump's illegal lawsuits against political opponents

HE is literally the reason why they are leaving. Has anyone told him that?