“Irreparably broken”: Former DOJ lawyers advocate for stronger protections from executive overreach

Former lawyers from the Department of Justice (DOJ) criticized what they characterized as executive overreach and erosion of independence under the Trump administration at a Thursday panel hosted by Stanford Law School (SLS).

The event, entitled “Principles Under Pressure: Former DOJ Lawyers on Power, Ethics, and Democracy,” was moderated by SLS Supreme Court Litigation Clinic director Pam Karlan. The panel brought together former Jan. 6 prosecutor Greg Rosen, former Pardon Attorney Liz Oyer and former civil rights attorney Stacey Young to discuss their experiences with ethical dilemmas on the job. All three are part of a wave of departures from the department due to friction with the Trump administration: Rosen and Young both resigned last year, while Oyer was fired in March.

According to Oyer, the DOJ has experienced an erosion of institutional independence. She claimed the circumstances of her dismissal evidence that the department is now subject to political interference. Oyer was dismissed after she refused to comply with a request to recommend the reinstatement of gun rights for actor Mel Gibson, which she said she “really just could not in good conscience recommend.” Gibson had been charged with domestic assault following a 2010 incident where he attacked his ex-girlfriend. 

Oyer believes the request was personally motivated: “I was asked essentially on the basis that he’s a friend of the president,” she said. Hours after her refusal, she was pulled out of a meeting and locked out of the building.

Oyer’s wasn’t the only case of alleged professional retaliation. According to Rosen, 15 staff members were fired for their involvement in the Jan. 6 prosecutions, which charged individuals involved in the U.S. Capitol attack with assault, interference with law enforcement officers and other charges. The officers had “committed themselves to a particular cause in a political fashion, and they were basically tossed to the side,” he said. Rosen himself was also demoted from Assistant United States Attorney to a position papering misdemeanor warrants.

For Rosen, the changing atmosphere at the DOJ lost him a vocational home: “the job that kept my blood going through the years didn’t exist anymore,” he said.

The panelists agreed that the department needs stronger protections from executive overreach. Although the department has historically relied on norms of good faith, those norms need to be codified and enforced, said Young. “This administration has run rough[shod] over the justice manual,” she said. “If there’s no adherence to norms and there’s no enforcement mechanism, then of course an institution can just be torn down.”

But Rosen says the damage is so pervasive that additional guardrails won’t do the trick. “There’s not one fire in the house; there [are] fires everywhere,” he said. Completely new institutions would need to be built, he said, through measures such as a new constitutional amendment. “I think [the] DOJ, in some ways, is irreparably broken,” he said.

Even though the three have left the department, they still believe it’s a legitimate choice to stay. “The backbone of [the] DOJ is its career workforce,” said Young. Those who remain can continue to protect the rule of law from inside the department through whistleblowing, she said.

What matters is that lawyers stick to their principles, Oyer said. “Once you compromise your integrity, you cannot get it back.”

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