A group of law enforcement veterans has launched a “referral network” of pro bono lawyers to protect the targets of President Donald Trump’s ire at the Department of Justice.
The move comes as the Trump administration has attempted to pressure some of the country’s top law firms into submission via executive orders, cutting off an avenue of support for FBI special agents and federal prosecutors who may need legal representation to fight retaliatory firings, the looming threat of criminal charges and congressional investigations.
Investigators who worked on criminal cases against Trump, against Jan. 6 rioters, and on other issues that have angered the MAGA movement now have a target on their backs. But as Trump has actively gone after law firms, it’s become increasingly difficult for these people to find lawyers to help them.
Stacey Young, a veteran of the DOJ, founded Justice Connection at the start of the current Trump administration to guide department employees on how to whistleblow, leak to reporters, and find jobs if they decide to quit. She’s now decided to launch this new network to offer help to those employees.
Trending
“We’re launching this not because there’s a huge pool of people who need representation right now, but we expect that there will be. We’re expecting a lot of random terminations and a lot of people, specifically from the FBI, who are going to be facing criminal investigations,” she told NOTUS on Tuesday.
The entire network is made up of volunteers who are deeply familiar with the ins and outs of the department — and are themselves willing to brave retribution from the White House.
“This model is especially important because people in the department really trust people who’ve been there,” Young said.
Melanie Proctor, an attorney in San Francisco who previously coordinated civil rights cases for the regional U.S. Attorney’s Office, recalled how the DOJ rapidly spun down a working group tasked with improving health care outcomes for the aging LGBTQ community even before Trump began his first term. She is now volunteering for Young’s group.
“In late 2016, I saw many of the standards and norms shredded very quickly. I didn’t know where to go, and I didn’t know who to trust. I wanted to be part of that answer for people who are now in that situation,” she told NOTUS.
“Something I took pride in as a DOJ attorney was that no one ever expected me to do anything that would violate my oath. The law was the law. Justice wasn’t being served if we were doing things unjustly. We stood for something,” she said. “But I think people will be targeted for doing the right thing: not taking a stance in court that is contrary to law.”
Part of the problem facing current DOJ personnel who fear for their jobs is that federal worker lawsuits tend to be particularly slow and therefore costly, which means that few solo employment lawyers take on cases.
But a larger issue for these employees is the fact that the legal forum that handles federal employment disputes, the Merit Systems Protection Board, doesn’t even have a quorum to function ever since Trump fired its chair, Cathy Harris. And the Supreme Court in April decided it wouldn’t put her back in place while she fights to get her job back, meaning the board isn’t able to consider appeals of hearing decisions.
“We’re stuck in an administrative limbo with courts saying you can’t come to us until you go through MSPB, but MSPB doesn’t have a quorum. No lawyer is going to pick up that case,” said D.C. employment lawyer Pamela Keith, who is not part of the network but currently represents FBI employees fighting to stop the DOJ from now retaliating against them for working on Jan. 6 cases they were assigned to.
Yet another challenge is that current FBI agents and federal prosecutors have privately expressed fears that they are being monitored by the very surveillance methods they employ against terrorists and criminals — causing some of them to hesitate discussing matters even with their own lawyers, according to several sources who spoke to NOTUS on condition of anonymity.
Young said she’s aware that her organization could be spied on by the Trump government if the administration seeks to identify which DOJ employees are reaching out for help, which is why it is accepting emails seeking legal support — but is offering to quickly shift conversations to encrypted chat apps like Signal.
But the network includes ex-DOJ brass who understand the risks — like David H. Laufman, a former DOJ official who oversaw the investigation of Hillary Clinton’s email server and Russian government efforts to influence the 2016 presidential election, who sees his work with the organization as a moral obligation
“The Justice Department is a cornerstone of the rule of law in America, and the administration has taken a sledgehammer to that. The men and women who have dedicated themselves to pursuing justice without fear or favor in a completely nonpolitical manner now see their careers in danger or even shattered. So I feel a moral obligation as an alumni to do anything I can to help them,” he said.
Laufman and others told NOTUS that the White House has, in just four months, succeeded in turning the DOJ into the president’s personal weapon — and that current employees are facing daily ethical crises as they decide how to represent the government in federal court without violating their oath to defend the U.S. Constitution.
It “is not an oath to a man or an administration,” Laufman stressed. “I’ve had a bird’s-eye view of the department and been in the belly of the beast as a prosecutor. We haven’t experienced anything in the history of the department like we’re experiencing right now.
“And we have to do everything we can … to push back now, because the more traction they get in carrying out their malevolent designs, the more damage they will do.”
—
Jose Pagliery is a reporter at NOTUS.
Author
