Things
aren’t
great
at
the
Department
of
Justice,
and
rather
than
get
to
the
root
of
the
issue,
they’ve
come
up
with
a
bold
new
staffing
strategy
involving
duct
tape,
vibes,
and
whatever
warm
bodies
happen
to
be
nearby.
According
to
reporting
from
Bloomberg
Law,
the
latest
brainchild
out
of
Main
Justice
is
something
called
“emergency
jump
teams,”
which
sounds
less
like
a
serious
prosecutorial
strategy
and
more
like
a
rejected
pitch
for
a
CBS
procedural.
According
to
a
February
2
memo
from
Francey
Hakes,
the
director
of
DOJ’s
Executive
Office
for
U.S.
Attorneys,
each
of
the
nation’s
93
U.S.
attorney’s
offices
has
until
February
6
to
volunteer
one
or
two
assistant
U.S.
attorneys
who
can
be
rotated
into
high-need
areas
facing
“urgent
assistance
due
to
emergent
or
critical
situations.”
DOJ
has
blown
a
hole
in
its
own
staffing
model
and
is
now
slotting
in
prosecutors
to
be
human
sandbags.
Trump’s
personal
law
firm,
which
is
how
the
once
venerable
DOJ
was
rebranded
at
the
start
of
the
Trump
II
term,
is
leaking
attorneys
like
a
sieve.
But
that’s
what
happens
when
career
prosecutors
are
asked
to drop
corruption
cases as
part
of
a
corrupt
political
bargain
or sign
off
on
baseless
prosecutions of
Trump’s
enemies
or
be
part
of
a
fascist
machine
that
ignores
court
orders
and
the
Constitution.
DOJ
lawyers
are
burning
out,
walking
out,
or
in
one
memorable
case,
asking
a
judge
to
hold
them
in
contempt
just
so
they
can
finally
get
some
sleep.
Instead
of
reconsidering
whether
flooding
line
prosecutors
with
legally
dubious
ICE
cases
is
a
great
idea,
DOJ
has
opted
for
the
institutional
equivalent
of
shouting
“NEXT!”
and
grabbing
whoever
hasn’t
escaped
yet.
Before
landing
on
jump
teams,
DOJ
tried
plugging
the
gaps
with
military
lawyers.
Then
came
recruiting
prosecutors
on
social
media,
which
is
a
real
thing
that
happened.
Now,
with
morale
somewhere
beneath
the
Mariana
Trench,
DOJ
wants
AUSAs
to
sign
up
for
short-term
deployments
to
wherever
the
latest
crisis
has
erupted
—
crises
that,
it
should
be
noted,
the
federal
government
largely
created
for
itself.
And
let’s
be
very
clear
about
what
some
of
these
“emergent
or
critical
situations”
are
supposed
to
involve.
Hakes’s
memo
explicitly
ties
the
jump
teams
to
carrying
out
Attorney
General
Pam
Bondi’s
December
directive
ordering
law
enforcement
to
“root
out”
antifa
and
other
left-associated
anti-government
groups.
Because
nothing
says
neutral
law
enforcement
quite
like
emergency
prosecutorial
squads
mobilized
to
chase
the
attorney
general’s
preferred
political
boogeymen.
The
DOJ
is
treating
career
prosecutors
as
replaceable
widgets
while
also
demanding
they
shoulder
legally
questionable
cases
at
breakneck
speed.
That
is
unsustainable,
and
this
plan
is
literally
rearranging
deck
chairs
on
a
ship
that
keeps
springing
new
leaks.
And
no
amount
of
jumping
is
going
to
save
that.
Kathryn
Rubino
is
a
Senior
Editor
at
Above
the
Law,
host
of
The
Jabot
podcast,
and
co-host
of
Thinking
Like
A
Lawyer.
AtL
tipsters
are
the
best,
so
please
connect
with
her.
Feel
free
to
email
her
with
any
tips,
questions,
or
comments
and
follow
her
on
Twitter
@Kathryn1 or
Mastodon
@[email protected].