When President Donald Trump spoke to employees of the Ministry of Justice on Friday afternoon, he sent many lawyers responsible for defending his policies in court on more than 120 prosecution.
For some of these lawyers, it was a difficult week, because the judges in several cases seemed skeptical about the arguments of the government.
While defending policies such as government’s mass dismissals or the ban on transgender soldiers from the Pentagon, a number of MJ lawyers found themselves as soon as they try to answer the questions asked.
“So, people with gender dysphoria cannot be honest, humble or have integrity. Do you think it’s degrading for people with gender dysphoria?” US District Judge Ana Reyes asked an MJ lawyer on Wednesday at an hearing on the military ban.
“I cannot answer this question,” he replied.
Reyes then reprimanded each of the DOJ lawyers after admitting that none of them had read any of the scientific studies used to support the prohibition in legal deposits under oath.
During a disputed hearing in Maryland on Wednesday about Trump’s mass dismissals – which finally led the judge to supervise the case to order that around 20,000 employees are reintegrated – an MJ’s lawyer could not answer when a judge has pressed him to confirm how many employees had been dismissed.
President Donald Trump speaks to the Washington Ministry of Justice, March 14, 2025.
Andrew Harnik / Getty images
“More than 50 or less than 50? … more than 100 or less than 100? … less than 1,000?” Judge James Bredar asked what the lawyer replied that he could not have an estimate at that time.
“You don’t know? … Anyone in government knows?” The judge continued to put pressure, only for the government’s lawyer to say again that he does not know.
For an audience on an emergency prescription to block a decree against the law firm Perkins Coie, the Ministry of Justice has chosen to send Chad Mizelle, the Chief of Staff of Prosecutor General Pam Bondi, to argue on behalf of the government. The complete defense of Mizelle’s policy – which prohibits the company’s lawyers from entering any government building – led Judge Beryl Howell to notice that the radical nature of some of his arguments sent “chills in my spine”.
“When you say that if the president, in his opinion, takes the position that an individual or an organization or a company exploits a means which is not in the interests of the country, he can issue a decree like this and take measures to prohibit this individual, this entity, this company to do business with the government, to terminate contracts, they have, to state them federal buildings?” Said Howell.
“I mean, it is an extraordinary power for the president of the exercise,” said the judge.
“If he made a conclusion that there is a risk of national security with a private law firm, then yes,” replied Mizelle.
During the address of Friday at the Ministry of Justice, Trump said, without presenting evidence, that the media organizations and the Democratic Party ended to challenge his administration – and he urged lawyers to fight back.
“They are horrible people. They are scams,” Trump said about those who oppose him in court. “We will have these cases where you cannot afford to be deflected. You just can’t let it happen. You have such a high call.”
Trump’s visit to the MJ headquarters, during which he exhibited his vision of the department and suggested several times that his named people should imprison his political enemies, was a departure of decades of post-watergate standards where the management of the MJ sought to maintain an appearance of independence from the White House in criminal matters.
