Pam Bondi’s Department of Justice is recruiting prosecutors with no experience following a mass exodus of thousands of employees since President Donald Trump took office for the second time.
An estimated 5,500 attorneys and staff members have quit, been fired, or taken buyouts, leaving widespread vacancies across the department, the American Bar Association reported in November.
Two-thirds of the attorneys in the DOJ division tasked with defending Trump’s signature policies have left, Reuters reported in July, while the civil rights division and the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Minnesota have hemorrhaged prosecutors over the department’s handling of Trump’s mass deportation operation.
To fill the void, the DOJ has now lowered its hiring standards, Bloomberg Law reported.
Incoming federal prosecutors previously needed to have at least one year of experience to be eligible to apply for open roles, with many offices adopting their own, stricter rules requiring at least three years of legal practice.
As of this month, the DOJ has suspended the one-year minimum requirement and is allowing U.S. attorney’s offices to accept candidates straight out of law school.
A March 13 memo announcing the rule change said the suspension was “implemented due to an exigent hiring need for attorneys across the Department,” according to Bloomberg.
Public postings for assistant U.S. attorney openings in Minnesota, South Florida, Montana, Alaska, and Louisiana require applicants to have just a law degree and an active state bar membership.
Other U.S. attorney’s offices are still requiring one to three years of experience.
A DOJ spokesperson told Bloomberg in a statement that the DOJ was “proud to empower young and passionate prosecutors and offer attorneys at every level the opportunity to invest their talents into keeping their communities safe.”
The Daily Beast has also reached out for comment.
The new standards come as the DOJ has increasingly abandoned its traditional mission of enforcing the nation’s laws and administering justice, and instead begun posturing as the president’s personal law firm.
Experienced prosecutors have clashed with DOJ leadership over the administration’s efforts to prosecute Trump’s political enemies despite a lack of evidence, its case against journalists Don Lemon and Georgia Fort, and its failure to investigate the killings of U.S. citizens Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti at the hands of federal immigration agents.
In January, White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller shared a post on X.com saying the DOJ was recruiting lawyers who “support President Trump.”
“If you want to combat fraud, crime and illegal immigration, reach out,” he wrote. “Patriots needed.”
Federal law prohibits the government from discriminating against job candidates based on their political affiliation.
But the lawyers who remain at the understaffed U.S. attorney’s offices have revealed they’re facing massive legal backlogs and toxic working conditions, including a lack of training.
Last month, a rogue ICE attorney said convincing the government to follow court orders was like “pulling teeth” and begged a federal judge to hold her in contempt
“The system sucks. This job sucks. I wish you could hold me in contempt so that I could get 24 hours of sleep,” said Julie Le, who has since left the federal government.
The DOJ has blamed the situation on “rogue judges.”
