WEBVTT - Oregon & Illinois Sue Trump & Senior Leaders Exit DOJ 0:00:02.759 --> 0:00:07.000 This is Bloomberg Law with June Grossel from Bloomberg Radio. 0:00:09.080 --> 0:00:11.920 The place is burning down, and they pretend like there's 0:00:11.920 --> 0:00:12.719 nothing happening. 0:00:13.800 --> 0:00:16.400 The facts on the ground and Oregon haven't changed. There's 0:00:16.400 --> 0:00:19.160 no need for military intervention in Oregon. There's no insurrection 0:00:19.239 --> 0:00:22.680 in Portland. There's no threat to national security. Oregon is 0:00:22.720 --> 0:00:24.640 our home. It is not a military target. 0:00:25.200 --> 0:00:29.159 President Trump still maintains that Portland is burning to the 0:00:29.200 --> 0:00:33.239 ground and is war ravaged, despite what the Governor of Oregon, 0:00:33.320 --> 0:00:36.720 Tina Kotek, has said, and despite the fact that a 0:00:36.760 --> 0:00:40.120 federal judge found over the weekend that there were no 0:00:40.320 --> 0:00:45.360 facts to support Trump's claims that anarchists and professional agitators 0:00:45.600 --> 0:00:49.440 were trying to burn the city down. Judge Karen Immergut, 0:00:49.440 --> 0:00:53.720 a Trump appointee, issued two orders in two days. The 0:00:53.760 --> 0:00:58.400 first block the Trump administration from deploying Oregon National Guard 0:00:58.440 --> 0:01:02.960 troops to Portland, but the judge said the administration directly 0:01:03.120 --> 0:01:07.760 contravened that order by calling up the California Guard, so 0:01:07.840 --> 0:01:12.000 she issued a second order, blocking the administration from sending 0:01:12.240 --> 0:01:17.120 any National Guard troops into Portland. Oregon's Attorney General, Dan 0:01:17.280 --> 0:01:22.199 Rayfield described the administration's actions as whack a mole trying 0:01:22.240 --> 0:01:25.319 to use guard units from different states to get around 0:01:25.360 --> 0:01:29.039 court orders and the rule of law. The judge's order 0:01:29.600 --> 0:01:33.000 was not some minor procedural point for the president to 0:01:33.040 --> 0:01:35.360 work around like my fourteen year old does when he 0:01:35.360 --> 0:01:39.680 doesn't like my answers. Judge Immergut's ruling found that the 0:01:39.760 --> 0:01:45.360 Constitution leaves policing powers to state and local governments, while 0:01:45.400 --> 0:01:49.200 granting Congress the power to call up state militias to 0:01:49.320 --> 0:01:55.600 execute federal laws, suppress insurrections, and repel invasions. Quote. This 0:01:55.680 --> 0:02:00.360 is a nation of constitutional law, not martial law. My 0:02:00.440 --> 0:02:04.280 guest is constitutional law expert Harold Krent, a professor at 0:02:04.320 --> 0:02:08.160 the Chicago Kent College of Law. So, how quite an 0:02:08.160 --> 0:02:11.519 opinion from a Trump appoint de and she said the 0:02:11.560 --> 0:02:15.440 administration had violated her order. It seems like this is 0:02:15.480 --> 0:02:19.440 a direct contravention of the order this court issued yesterday. 0:02:20.000 --> 0:02:23.560 Tell us what the Trump administration was trying to do here. 0:02:24.800 --> 0:02:28.640 The Trump administration, somewhat parallel to Los Angeles and perhaps 0:02:28.639 --> 0:02:32.280 to Chicago as well, is trying to send National Guards 0:02:32.400 --> 0:02:36.480 troops into Portland in what they think is an effort 0:02:36.480 --> 0:02:41.359 to restore order, and principally, the judge in Oregon said 0:02:41.440 --> 0:02:46.760 that there's been no basis shown for federalizing the National Guard. 0:02:47.040 --> 0:02:50.119 In other words, that President Trump lacks the authority under 0:02:50.120 --> 0:02:55.120 the statutory scheme to send National Guards into Portland because 0:02:55.120 --> 0:02:59.000 there's no insurrection, there's no invasion, there's no showing that 0:02:59.040 --> 0:03:03.560 there's a failure general law enforcement. And so she then 0:03:03.800 --> 0:03:08.760 decided to ensure that not only was there no troops 0:03:08.760 --> 0:03:12.280 sent from Oregon, no troops sent from California, no troops 0:03:12.320 --> 0:03:17.320 sent from anywhere, in order to ensure that the administration 0:03:17.440 --> 0:03:20.560 did not try to serve invent her order. Whether or 0:03:20.600 --> 0:03:25.200 not the government will comply with her order remains to 0:03:25.200 --> 0:03:27.079 be seen, but we're watching carefully. 0:03:27.280 --> 0:03:30.720 She said it was a direct contravention. But what had 0:03:30.760 --> 0:03:34.240 happened was she ordered that they couldn't send the Oregon 0:03:34.320 --> 0:03:38.320 National Guard troops into Portland. So the Trump administration then 0:03:38.440 --> 0:03:42.560 moved to call up the Texas National Guard and the 0:03:42.640 --> 0:03:46.680 California National Guard. Is that a direct contravention or were 0:03:46.680 --> 0:03:48.760 they trying to use a loophole. 0:03:49.600 --> 0:03:51.280 I think they're trying to use a loophole, and so 0:03:51.320 --> 0:03:54.920 I don't think it was any kind of contemptuous behavior. Certainly, 0:03:55.080 --> 0:03:59.600 it violated the spirit of the Oregon Courts order, but 0:03:59.760 --> 0:04:04.880 not the letter. And indeed, I think that the Oregon 0:04:05.680 --> 0:04:10.360 Court's decision is iffy to put it that way. It's 0:04:10.440 --> 0:04:14.600 true that the prerequisites for federalized in the National Guard 0:04:14.640 --> 0:04:18.279 had not been met statutorily, but the Supreme Court has 0:04:18.320 --> 0:04:23.000 recognized a kind of inherent protective power of the president 0:04:23.400 --> 0:04:27.279 to protect federal facilities at least, and so to the 0:04:27.320 --> 0:04:31.040 extent that the National Guard were used not for general 0:04:31.120 --> 0:04:36.080 law enforcement, certainly, but just to protect federal buildings in Portland, 0:04:36.400 --> 0:04:39.000 I think the president would be on stronger ground. Now, 0:04:39.160 --> 0:04:41.680 of course there's no factual predicate for thinking that the 0:04:41.720 --> 0:04:45.840 federal buildings are in jeopardy in Portland or in Chicago, 0:04:46.160 --> 0:04:48.200 but that at least would be I think put the 0:04:48.240 --> 0:04:50.040 president on the strongest legal ground. 0:04:51.200 --> 0:04:54.960 I mean, the judge made a factual determination. She said 0:04:55.000 --> 0:04:58.919 the president's determination was simply unchathered to the facts. He 0:04:59.000 --> 0:05:04.719 has claimed that the city's overrun with agitators and insurrectionists 0:05:04.960 --> 0:05:09.080 who are responsible for burning the city to the ground, 0:05:09.640 --> 0:05:14.560 and that Portland was war ravaged. So she's found that 0:05:14.560 --> 0:05:18.240 that's not true. Those facts that he suggested are not true. 0:05:18.240 --> 0:05:20.120 So then he doesn't have the power, does he. 0:05:20.839 --> 0:05:23.200 Yeah, the President's overreached, right, and the President should have 0:05:23.200 --> 0:05:28.000 made a much more narrow cabin decision stating that there 0:05:28.120 --> 0:05:31.440 was a potential or a real threaten in his understanding 0:05:31.680 --> 0:05:35.760 to federal facilities in Portland and therefore needed to dispatch 0:05:36.360 --> 0:05:39.880 National Guards troops in order to protect those buildings. But 0:05:39.920 --> 0:05:45.839 instead he is granted about Portland and anarchists for years 0:05:45.880 --> 0:05:49.960 and years, and he's just refreshing those means. And of 0:05:50.000 --> 0:05:53.200 course the court in Oregon was much more familiar with 0:05:53.240 --> 0:05:56.160 what's going on in Oregon, said, you know, if that's 0:05:56.160 --> 0:05:59.279 a factual basis, you're out of court. 0:06:00.000 --> 0:06:02.920 Why do you think that Trump administration is making these 0:06:03.440 --> 0:06:08.400 overbroad arguments about cities burning down and violence on the 0:06:08.480 --> 0:06:13.040 streets everywhere when there's no factual basis for it, and 0:06:13.080 --> 0:06:17.480 there's video that shows there's no basis. Any violence, if 0:06:17.520 --> 0:06:20.960 there is any, seems to be limited to the areas 0:06:21.160 --> 0:06:26.000 around federal buildings with ice facilities. Why not limit it 0:06:26.000 --> 0:06:27.080 to what's provable. 0:06:27.960 --> 0:06:31.719 I mean, there is a political question in underlying your statement, 0:06:31.880 --> 0:06:35.640 and maybe a psychological one as well. Is President Trump 0:06:35.680 --> 0:06:39.760 doing this to inure the American to the site of 0:06:40.440 --> 0:06:44.000 federal troops on their streets. If so, incredibly frightening, because 0:06:44.320 --> 0:06:48.000 it may mean that he's planning to use federal troops 0:06:48.040 --> 0:06:52.520 for other purposes, such as, you know, during I move 0:06:52.560 --> 0:06:56.200 the day, but during the midterms, or alternatively, is this 0:06:56.320 --> 0:07:00.360 just something that he can help his base within by 0:07:00.360 --> 0:07:04.120 suggesting he's strong and he cares about people, and he's 0:07:04.160 --> 0:07:08.800 going to send troops wherever it's needed to protect against lawlessness. 0:07:08.960 --> 0:07:12.000 I don't know which it is, but certainly this has 0:07:12.040 --> 0:07:14.840 been a consistent team with his He wants to send 0:07:14.880 --> 0:07:18.120 troops to be tough, to be seen as the law 0:07:18.160 --> 0:07:22.440 and order president, even if troops aren't needed, and even 0:07:22.480 --> 0:07:26.320 if that violates statutes, and even if it undermines the 0:07:26.480 --> 0:07:29.679 tradition in our country of not having a standing army 0:07:30.320 --> 0:07:33.280 or even the National Guard being used for general law 0:07:33.360 --> 0:07:34.320 enforcement purposes. 0:07:35.120 --> 0:07:39.040 The Oregon Ag described this as a whack a mole, 0:07:39.160 --> 0:07:43.240 with different states Guard units being used to get around 0:07:43.360 --> 0:07:47.200 the court's order. The judge she expressed frustration with the 0:07:47.440 --> 0:07:50.760 Justice Department's lawyer, Eric Hamilton, saying he was missing the 0:07:50.800 --> 0:07:54.920 point of her earlier order, and she said, quote mister Hamilton, 0:07:55.000 --> 0:07:57.480 you're an officer of the court. Do you believe this 0:07:57.520 --> 0:07:59.960 is an appropriate way for you to deal with mind 0:08:00.360 --> 0:08:02.640 order or with an order you disagree with? 0:08:03.240 --> 0:08:05.080 Yeah, I mean, to be fair, I think that the 0:08:05.160 --> 0:08:08.880 Justice Department was reading the order narrowly, which it's entitled 0:08:08.880 --> 0:08:13.800 to do. And the order banned the Oregon National Guard 0:08:13.840 --> 0:08:17.320 from being federalized and didn't talk about the Texas National 0:08:17.360 --> 0:08:20.680 Guard or the California National Guard. And maybe that was 0:08:20.760 --> 0:08:24.480 just a failure of litigation, and that loophole has been 0:08:24.480 --> 0:08:28.120 closed forthwith. Certainly, again, it was against the spirit of 0:08:28.160 --> 0:08:30.200 the rulers, no question about it what the government did. 0:08:30.360 --> 0:08:31.960 But I don't think it's contemptuous. 0:08:32.160 --> 0:08:38.000 And explain the judge's ruling about why the deployment likely 0:08:38.080 --> 0:08:41.120 violated Oregon's Tenth Amendment rights. 0:08:41.400 --> 0:08:45.000 Well, the Oregon Governor isn't put in control of the 0:08:45.080 --> 0:08:49.080 National Guard of Oregon, and so here there is we 0:08:49.160 --> 0:08:53.840 have the president who's ordering the Oregon National Guard into 0:08:54.440 --> 0:08:57.600 active duty, despite the fact that the governor who's in 0:08:57.679 --> 0:09:00.720 charge of it, commander of it, has a client to 0:09:00.760 --> 0:09:05.400 do so. Therein lies the Tenth Amendment struggle, because seemingly 0:09:05.440 --> 0:09:08.240 the president has served the governor's authority to be, in 0:09:08.280 --> 0:09:11.640 effect the head of the troop's National Guard, at least 0:09:11.679 --> 0:09:12.320 within Oregon. 0:09:12.880 --> 0:09:17.680 On Sunday, California Governor Gavin Newsom filed a separate lawsuit 0:09:18.200 --> 0:09:23.920 to prevent Trump from sending his states National Guard to Oregon. 0:09:24.720 --> 0:09:29.440 So the national Guard is under the control of the 0:09:29.480 --> 0:09:33.920 governor of the state. So does the president have the 0:09:33.960 --> 0:09:37.520 authority to take that national Guard out of the control 0:09:37.600 --> 0:09:39.960 of the governor of the state and send them to 0:09:40.040 --> 0:09:40.800 another state. 0:09:41.160 --> 0:09:43.080 Yeah, I mean I think that obviously we don't have 0:09:43.400 --> 0:09:47.760 precedents on that power, and certainly I would think in 0:09:47.840 --> 0:09:51.679 an emergency, perhaps the authority might exist in the president 0:09:51.800 --> 0:09:57.000 to order a state's National Guard into active duty, even 0:09:57.040 --> 0:09:59.600 if the governor didn't want to. And this seems like 0:09:59.679 --> 0:10:02.600 a a far stretch, And that's why the temp amendment 0:10:02.640 --> 0:10:06.960 issue arises, because here there is a claim that the 0:10:07.000 --> 0:10:10.199 California the National Guard is needed in a different state, 0:10:10.520 --> 0:10:13.720 and that seems to directly cut against unless there's a 0:10:13.800 --> 0:10:18.560 national emergency or an insurrection, the idea of ordering one 0:10:18.600 --> 0:10:22.280 state's guard to go into another state, particularly without the 0:10:22.280 --> 0:10:26.640 approval of the governor, seems to be directly contrary to 0:10:27.040 --> 0:10:30.640 the regime of militias, which has long been supervised by 0:10:31.040 --> 0:10:33.680 state governors from the revolutionary time onward. 0:10:34.240 --> 0:10:38.560 Representative Adam Smith, the senior Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, 0:10:38.559 --> 0:10:41.320 has said that he couldn't remember another time when one 0:10:41.360 --> 0:10:45.560 state's national guard was deployed to another state over the 0:10:45.600 --> 0:10:51.199 objections of both governors involved. So no precedent, it's unprecedent. 0:10:51.559 --> 0:10:55.400 It's unprecedent here, and it seems to be directly an 0:10:55.400 --> 0:10:59.760 affront to the Tenth Amendments, which lodgist responsibility in states 0:11:00.040 --> 0:11:03.520 to their governors and to their elected representatives. But there's 0:11:03.600 --> 0:11:06.840 just hasn't been a lot of precedents on point, So 0:11:06.920 --> 0:11:08.520 obviously the court are going to have to weigh in. 0:11:08.800 --> 0:11:14.240 Donald Trump's deranged depiction of Chicago as a hellhole, a 0:11:14.400 --> 0:11:18.040 war zone and the worst and most dangerous city in 0:11:18.080 --> 0:11:24.040 the world was just complete bs. He clearly has decided 0:11:24.120 --> 0:11:27.680 to declare war on a great American city that has 0:11:27.720 --> 0:11:31.800 the lowest homicide rate in sixty years, in a state 0:11:31.920 --> 0:11:36.440 that has record employment and near record tourism. 0:11:36.880 --> 0:11:41.040 That's Governor JB. Pritzker. As Illinois becomes the latest state 0:11:41.200 --> 0:11:44.880 to sue the Trump administration over its plans to send 0:11:44.960 --> 0:11:48.560 National Guard troops into one of its cities against the 0:11:48.600 --> 0:11:52.480 wishes of state and local officials. I've been talking to 0:11:52.520 --> 0:11:56.200 Professor Harold Krant of the Chicago Kent College of Law, 0:11:56.440 --> 0:12:00.520 So how tell us what's happening in your city? Are there? 0:12:01.640 --> 0:12:03.840 I don't think they're there yet. The Attorney General has 0:12:03.840 --> 0:12:08.640 already filed suits. The Mayor of Chicago has made a 0:12:08.679 --> 0:12:12.319 vaguely worded statement like we must resist with all force, 0:12:12.400 --> 0:12:17.480 but no one knows what that means. So tensions are heightened, 0:12:17.800 --> 0:12:21.120 and we will expect to see National Guard troops from 0:12:21.160 --> 0:12:25.200 Texas evidently who will be coming to Chicago in nearboy 0:12:25.200 --> 0:12:28.160 And again, yet there has been problems with some kind 0:12:28.160 --> 0:12:32.200 of ICE enforcement. ICE has killed somebody in in Chicago, 0:12:32.480 --> 0:12:36.040 They've arrested other people and trying to make these raids, 0:12:36.280 --> 0:12:39.319 but there has been no complete falling apart of any 0:12:39.400 --> 0:12:42.800 kind of ordinary law enforcement. And indeed, there's been some 0:12:42.840 --> 0:12:47.200 evidence that ICE itself has instigated the protests by the 0:12:47.240 --> 0:12:50.920 manner in which they are trying to conduct raids. So again, 0:12:50.960 --> 0:12:54.719 this is I think for show. The President wants to 0:12:54.760 --> 0:12:57.280 be seen as tough in it if he wants to 0:12:57.320 --> 0:13:01.360 send troops into Chicago. He's, by god, he's going to 0:13:01.400 --> 0:13:04.920 do it, and Governor Abbott of Texas is willing to comply. 0:13:05.400 --> 0:13:08.920 So there's no Tenth Amendment violation there with using Texas 0:13:09.120 --> 0:13:10.120 National Guard troops. 0:13:10.480 --> 0:13:15.680 What's the basis of Illinois suit against the deployment, and. 0:13:15.720 --> 0:13:18.040 There's several bases, but they first would say that the 0:13:18.320 --> 0:13:22.200 statutory prerequisites are not met in terms of federalizing National Guard, 0:13:22.280 --> 0:13:25.199 in terms of there's no invasion, there's no absence of 0:13:25.280 --> 0:13:28.920 general law enforcement, there's no insurrection. And so then I 0:13:28.920 --> 0:13:32.600 think the issue will likely boil down to whether there 0:13:32.640 --> 0:13:35.720 is some kind of protective power inheriting the presidency that 0:13:35.800 --> 0:13:38.560 can allow the president to send troops, at least for 0:13:38.600 --> 0:13:44.160 the narrow purpose of defending federal facilities. This really gets 0:13:44.200 --> 0:13:47.599 us back to what Judge Bryer said in the California 0:13:48.000 --> 0:13:52.360 of litigation that if there is this protective power, it's 0:13:52.720 --> 0:13:57.160 very limited. It's limited to protecting federal facilities, and it 0:13:57.240 --> 0:14:02.240 cannot be used to justify a broad federal presence in 0:14:02.360 --> 0:14:08.520 terms of general law enforcement, in terms of accompanying ice 0:14:08.640 --> 0:14:11.800 officers on the along the way, et cetera, et cetera. 0:14:11.960 --> 0:14:15.240 So we may get involved in that, But that's that's 0:14:15.320 --> 0:14:18.640 down the road, because first there's a question of authorization. 0:14:19.360 --> 0:14:23.240 And you know, again President Trump is being too broad. 0:14:23.400 --> 0:14:27.440 He's saying there's lawlessness in Chicago, and that justifies him 0:14:27.920 --> 0:14:31.880 using the Texas National Guard. And that's if there's a 0:14:31.920 --> 0:14:35.320 factual predicate there to be decided. I'm sure the judges 0:14:35.360 --> 0:14:38.680 here will hear the evidence and they're very unlikely to 0:14:38.720 --> 0:14:41.240 back President Trump and his broad assertions. 0:14:41.600 --> 0:14:44.640 Did he also call up the Illinois National Guard? 0:14:45.120 --> 0:14:48.120 He has not done that yet to my knowledge, he 0:14:48.200 --> 0:14:51.760 has threatened to, and of course Governor Pritzker has has 0:14:51.840 --> 0:14:54.680 not only said that he would do over his objection, 0:14:55.120 --> 0:14:58.040 but at the same time he also said that the 0:14:58.320 --> 0:15:01.880 President Trump has not even called him to ask for permission, 0:15:02.520 --> 0:15:05.320 So that may happen down the line. Maybe it's already happened, 0:15:05.320 --> 0:15:07.640 but not to my knowledge, has. 0:15:07.480 --> 0:15:11.920 The Supreme Court even come close to resolving something similar 0:15:12.040 --> 0:15:15.680 in this sort of frame or not even close. 0:15:16.160 --> 0:15:19.960 And there are some vague similarities of what's happened under 0:15:19.960 --> 0:15:22.960 the Militia Acts back two hundred years ago, and there 0:15:23.320 --> 0:15:25.360 the Supreme Court has said that there is a protective 0:15:25.400 --> 0:15:28.640 power to some extent in the president to protect federal 0:15:28.680 --> 0:15:32.440 officials federal facilities, but nothing on this order, nothing on 0:15:32.480 --> 0:15:36.320 this extent. So this clash that President Trump was introduced 0:15:36.360 --> 0:15:41.360 in Oregon, Los Angeles and in Chicago is really unprecedented, 0:15:41.920 --> 0:15:44.920 and the course are going to have to make a 0:15:45.040 --> 0:15:47.960 very difficult decision in saying that. It's pretty clear that 0:15:48.000 --> 0:15:51.200 the statutory prerequisites have not been met. So I think 0:15:51.240 --> 0:15:53.600 they'll have to grapple with to what extent there's an 0:15:53.840 --> 0:15:58.520 implicit inherent authority at the president to protect federal officials 0:15:58.960 --> 0:16:03.120 and federal facilities and how far that extends. So very 0:16:03.160 --> 0:16:05.880 difficult issues for the courts to soar through, and obviously 0:16:05.920 --> 0:16:08.960 we've just had a beginning of that with the judges 0:16:08.960 --> 0:16:10.920 in California and Oregon. 0:16:11.560 --> 0:16:15.240 So last Tuesday, Trump said when he was addressing the 0:16:15.280 --> 0:16:20.000 military officers in Quantico that America is under invasion from 0:16:20.040 --> 0:16:24.640 within and he wants to use dangerous American cities run 0:16:24.720 --> 0:16:29.720 by Democrats as training grounds for the armed forces. Besides 0:16:29.800 --> 0:16:33.320 being frightening, does he have any authority. 0:16:32.880 --> 0:16:33.360 To do that? 0:16:33.840 --> 0:16:37.520 Well, what frightens me about that statement is is this 0:16:37.600 --> 0:16:40.520 is a training ground for what? Is this a dress 0:16:40.560 --> 0:16:46.560 rehearsal for a full scale attack on Democratic strongholds. Is 0:16:46.600 --> 0:16:51.200 this a rehearsal for getting us all prepared to see 0:16:51.440 --> 0:16:55.200 federal troops during the midterm elections. I mean, what is 0:16:55.240 --> 0:17:00.240 he actually preparing the military for. I don't know, but 0:17:00.520 --> 0:17:05.160 obviously this definitely cuts against our traditions, our norms about 0:17:05.160 --> 0:17:06.959 not having a standing army. And that's why we were 0:17:07.000 --> 0:17:09.560 afraid of having a standing army, because we've wanted to 0:17:10.000 --> 0:17:14.439 not see federal troops in the streets of all of 0:17:14.480 --> 0:17:18.840 our cities, both because of the respect given to states 0:17:19.000 --> 0:17:21.679 a state law enforcement and because of the dangers of 0:17:21.800 --> 0:17:25.439 having federal troops in civilian rules. 0:17:25.720 --> 0:17:28.520 There's a hearing date in the Illinois case on Thursday. 0:17:28.600 --> 0:17:32.320 We'll see what happens then. Thanks Hall. That's Professor Harold 0:17:32.400 --> 0:17:37.280 Krant of the Chicago Kent College of Law. At least 0:17:37.280 --> 0:17:41.040 a third of senior career leaders have left the Justice 0:17:41.040 --> 0:17:44.920 Department since the start of President Donald Trump's second term, 0:17:45.480 --> 0:17:49.960 taking with them centuries of combined expertise. That's according to 0:17:50.000 --> 0:17:55.240 a Bloomberg Law analysis. The departures, both voluntary and involuntary, 0:17:55.560 --> 0:18:00.359 represent an unprecedented level of departures in recent memory. With 0:18:00.480 --> 0:18:05.200 the divisions enforcing civil rights, immigration, and environmental laws among 0:18:05.240 --> 0:18:08.199 the hardest hit. They include at least one hundred and 0:18:08.240 --> 0:18:12.480 seven career Justice Department senior managers in the span of 0:18:12.560 --> 0:18:15.840 eight months. That's out of roughly three hundred and twenty 0:18:16.000 --> 0:18:21.879 career leadership positions immediately below presidential appointees included in a 0:18:21.920 --> 0:18:26.280 government directory. The loss of so many senior managers, many 0:18:26.359 --> 0:18:29.399 of whom have spent their entire careers rising through the 0:18:29.440 --> 0:18:35.040 department's ranks, could take generations to rebuild. The Justice Department 0:18:35.119 --> 0:18:40.159 is also losing many more trial attorneys and other career employees. 0:18:41.200 --> 0:18:45.560 Joining me is Bloomberg Law reporter Suzanne Monnak. Suzanne tell 0:18:45.640 --> 0:18:47.800 us about all these departures. 0:18:48.640 --> 0:18:51.480 We've seen this an unprecedented amount of attrition of the 0:18:51.520 --> 0:18:54.399 career workforce this year really across the government, but we've 0:18:54.520 --> 0:18:57.400 really seen it in a significant number as the Department 0:18:57.440 --> 0:19:01.359 of Justice. We used a federal director posted by the 0:19:01.400 --> 0:19:04.720 Office of Personnel Management that has, you know, hundreds and 0:19:04.760 --> 0:19:08.320 hundreds of career managers at the Justice Department. We focused 0:19:08.320 --> 0:19:11.040 on those who went through the career appointed process, and 0:19:11.480 --> 0:19:14.000 that's where we found that over a third of those 0:19:14.000 --> 0:19:16.840 who were in place in January and those career leadership 0:19:16.840 --> 0:19:20.440 positions are no longer there, and these include really broad 0:19:20.440 --> 0:19:24.919 types of positions whose include supervisors, you know, lead attorneys, 0:19:24.920 --> 0:19:29.359 managing attorneys, people in higher level positions. That's some senior 0:19:29.359 --> 0:19:32.240 executive service, but some other high level positions as well, 0:19:32.600 --> 0:19:35.560 who've been there for years and years, some of them 0:19:35.640 --> 0:19:38.240 who you know, keep work running at the Justice Department. 0:19:38.680 --> 0:19:41.400 Were these voluntary departures, were they fired? 0:19:42.000 --> 0:19:44.359 It's been a real mix. There have been examples of 0:19:44.520 --> 0:19:47.840 career managers at DJ who have been fully fired, some 0:19:47.920 --> 0:19:51.480 of whom are now contesting those terminations. A number of 0:19:51.520 --> 0:19:54.320 them chose to leave either. Some may have taken the 0:19:54.320 --> 0:19:57.359 deferred resignation policy that fork in the Road offer that 0:19:57.400 --> 0:20:00.440 was available across the government. Others may have just left 0:20:00.440 --> 0:20:03.120 for another job. And some were kind of left under 0:20:03.200 --> 0:20:06.160 what I might I was more dressed. Some people were 0:20:06.200 --> 0:20:09.280 forcibly reassigned or demoted, for example, to positions that they 0:20:09.280 --> 0:20:11.600 didn't want to be in, and so then felt kind 0:20:11.600 --> 0:20:14.640 of moved to leave the department. So, while technically not fired, 0:20:15.040 --> 0:20:18.160 were removed from their positions. One prominent example of that 0:20:18.240 --> 0:20:21.240 was the Sanctuary Cities Task Force that sort of became 0:20:21.480 --> 0:20:24.200 a place where we saw you know, some longtime career 0:20:24.240 --> 0:20:27.880 people get forcibly reassigned into and at this point, all 0:20:27.920 --> 0:20:30.320 of those people who were reassigned into that task force, 0:20:30.359 --> 0:20:32.480 which was you know, for the stated purpose of cracking 0:20:32.560 --> 0:20:35.399 down on so called sanctuary jurisdictions who don't want to 0:20:35.400 --> 0:20:38.159 cooperate with federal immigration authorities, all of the people in 0:20:38.160 --> 0:20:39.400 that task force have since left. 0:20:39.640 --> 0:20:42.600 These are the career officials who get a job at 0:20:42.640 --> 0:20:45.760 the Department of Justice, work their way up, and stay 0:20:45.760 --> 0:20:47.240 at the Department of Justice. 0:20:47.480 --> 0:20:49.639 Yes, it is very uncommon to see this amount of 0:20:49.680 --> 0:20:53.040 attrition when political administrations changed. I spoke to a number 0:20:53.040 --> 0:20:55.560 of former officials for this story, and you know, many 0:20:55.760 --> 0:20:57.960 described through people as the types of people who stay 0:20:58.080 --> 0:21:01.600 across political administration, which is kind of their very purpose. 0:21:01.600 --> 0:21:03.879 When a new administration comes in, they're going to appoint 0:21:03.880 --> 0:21:05.600 a lot of people who are their choices. There's going 0:21:05.680 --> 0:21:08.240 to be a lot of political appointees. But the real 0:21:08.440 --> 0:21:11.320 role of the career civil servants, you know, the career 0:21:11.359 --> 0:21:13.800 work force, the civil servants are to kind of, you know, 0:21:13.880 --> 0:21:15.840 help keep things moving. You know, there's going to be 0:21:15.880 --> 0:21:17.600 a bunch of new people who don't know what they're doing, 0:21:17.920 --> 0:21:20.919 but you'll have that career workforce in place always to 0:21:21.040 --> 0:21:23.240 you know, understand how how the department runs. 0:21:23.800 --> 0:21:26.320 Yeah, you talk to someone who was a political appointee 0:21:26.320 --> 0:21:29.560 who said, we took a lot of our direction from 0:21:29.600 --> 0:21:32.040 the career staff to do our jobs. 0:21:32.560 --> 0:21:35.000 Absolutely, I think that that's exactly the type of example, 0:21:35.000 --> 0:21:37.640 at least when a new political appointee comes in, you know, 0:21:37.760 --> 0:21:39.679 they may be very qualified, but they're just going to 0:21:39.680 --> 0:21:42.200 be new to that work potentially, and if they don't 0:21:42.240 --> 0:21:45.560 have that exact background themselves, and you know, political appointees 0:21:45.560 --> 0:21:47.800 I spoke to former political pointe is really said that 0:21:47.840 --> 0:21:50.600 they relied on that career workforce to have that expertise 0:21:50.840 --> 0:21:52.480 so that you know, they could go to someone and 0:21:52.520 --> 0:21:54.400 be you know, ask them, you know, how something works 0:21:54.440 --> 0:21:55.960 and how to do something, and just to kind of 0:21:55.960 --> 0:21:58.080 know that they have experienced people working for them. 0:21:58.400 --> 0:22:02.439 Tell us how many PEO people left or part of 0:22:02.480 --> 0:22:07.080 their reason was because of the executive order calling to 0:22:07.200 --> 0:22:11.440 prioritize accountability among the Senior Executive Service. 0:22:11.800 --> 0:22:14.320 Sure, so that was an executive order at the beginning 0:22:14.400 --> 0:22:17.240 of this administration that kind of gave us a little 0:22:17.240 --> 0:22:19.159 bit of a signal that the Trump administration was going 0:22:19.200 --> 0:22:21.240 to be taking a hard look at the senior executive 0:22:21.240 --> 0:22:24.640 service that maybe they you know, were distrustful of that 0:22:24.960 --> 0:22:27.560 group of people, even though you know, historically that's just 0:22:27.600 --> 0:22:30.320 been a group of people who've been here in high 0:22:30.400 --> 0:22:33.720 level career leadership potitions that are nonpartisan for many years. 0:22:34.320 --> 0:22:34.520 You know. 0:22:34.600 --> 0:22:36.879 Obviously, you can't say for sure how many you know, 0:22:37.000 --> 0:22:39.800 exactly how many people might have left because they read 0:22:39.840 --> 0:22:43.440 that order and you know, worried for their career trajectory, 0:22:43.520 --> 0:22:45.399 you know, But I think the Trump administration has done 0:22:45.440 --> 0:22:48.520 a lot, you know, very broadly that has made career 0:22:48.520 --> 0:22:51.800 managers you know, think twice about how long they might 0:22:51.800 --> 0:22:54.200 be able to stay in their roles, whether that's pivoting 0:22:54.280 --> 0:22:57.879 priorities of the department in terms of like litigating priorities, 0:22:58.400 --> 0:23:01.159 or just you know, generally making workers feel unstable and 0:23:01.200 --> 0:23:03.240 like they're going to be laid off. I mean, we've 0:23:03.240 --> 0:23:05.920 seen broad reductions and force throughout the government. This year. 0:23:06.359 --> 0:23:09.280 It was the Civil Rights Division that was hit the hardest. 0:23:09.320 --> 0:23:13.080 Seventy six percent of career managers departed. 0:23:13.480 --> 0:23:15.919 Yes, that's what we found them. Going through all of 0:23:15.960 --> 0:23:18.560 the career manager directory, we found that that division within 0:23:18.600 --> 0:23:21.840 the Justice Department had the highest share of career managers 0:23:21.960 --> 0:23:24.600 leaving this year that was similarly a mix. So many 0:23:24.600 --> 0:23:27.240 of those people had been demoted and left after that, 0:23:27.400 --> 0:23:29.439 some did leave on their own, and that was an 0:23:29.440 --> 0:23:31.480 example of a division that really did take a hard 0:23:31.520 --> 0:23:35.240 turn in a different direction ideologically this year. I mean, 0:23:35.240 --> 0:23:38.200 the Civil Rights Division has always somewhat been vulnerable to 0:23:38.280 --> 0:23:41.640 those types of changes as clinical administrations come and go, 0:23:42.080 --> 0:23:45.440 but we really saw quite a significant departure that former 0:23:45.480 --> 0:23:47.439 employees have told me was very different from the way 0:23:47.480 --> 0:23:51.000 it's been in the past in terms of changing ideological priorities. 0:23:51.200 --> 0:23:55.520 For example, instead of focusing on historically marginalized populations, which 0:23:55.640 --> 0:23:58.160 was along the focus of that division it was created 0:23:58.200 --> 0:24:00.800 during the Civil rights movement, we're now seeing a focus 0:24:00.840 --> 0:24:03.480 on gun rights and anti Christian bias. For example. 0:24:03.840 --> 0:24:07.160 What about the trial attorneys you know that are handling 0:24:07.200 --> 0:24:07.840