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Inside the secret resistance: The lawyers who tried to stop Trump’s DOJ
President Donald Trump's purge of the Justice Department has led to a mass exodus of talent, as well as chaos within the organization. Yet it has also revealed that several professionals have taken considerable risks to try to stand up to Trump, albeit unsuccessfully.
Starting with the story of how officials Celia Cohen and Danielle Sassoon resigned to protest Trump's order that they stop prosecuting Mayor Eric Adams, who was accused of accepting bribes, The New Yorker's Eyal Press reported on Monday that many Justice Department officials have resisted Trump's lawless behavior in a number of ways.
"Stacey Young, an attorney in the department’s Civil Rights Division, exited almost immediately after Trump was inaugurated," Press wrote. "Unlike some of her peers, Young took Trump at his word when he promised to use his power to exact revenge on his enemies should he be reëlected. She’d also read Project 2025, a blueprint issued by the right-wing Heritage Foundation which called for reclassifying civil servants as at-will employees—thus making it easier to replace them with politically aligned subordinates—and for rooting out 'progressive ideology' in the federal bureaucracy. In 2016, she’d founded a group within the D.O.J. to address gender disparities and sexual misconduct."
Talking about the general sentiments of current and former employees there, Press wrote that "several people who have exited the D.O.J. told me that any lawyer of integrity who can afford to stop working there should do so. 'Can you work for justice in an unjust department?' one asked, adding that his 'reservoir of grace' for those who remained had 'run dry.'" Press then told the story of Alexander Kristofcak, a former Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Civil Division of New York's Souther District, who in March, 2025 "posted on LinkedIn a copy of a letter that Ed Martin, whom Trump appointed as the interim U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, had sent to the dean of Georgetown Law School. Martin had threatened that his office would refuse to hire Georgetown students and graduates unless the university ended its diversity-equity-and-inclusion programs. The letter was 'a grotesque abuse of power' and 'an astonishing admission of viewpoint discrimination,' Kristofcak wrote on LinkedIn. (The D.C. Bar has since opened disciplinary proceedings against Martin.) Afterward, Kristofcak received many private notes from people thanking him for his comments. But on March 7, 2025—the same day the federal marshal came to Celia Cohen’s office—he also got a letter from Todd Blanche informing him that he’d been placed on leave."
Kristofcak had already decided to quit because the Trump Administration's behavior reminded him of the oppression imposed in Czechoslovakia, where he was born.
Press also told the story of "Matthew Evans, an Assistant U.S. Attorney in Minnesota," who objected to how an ICE officer who shot an unarmed immigrant through his front door would only be charged with making false statements.
"The next day, he was fired," Press reported. "In a chilling development, Evans is now under criminal investigation for allegedly leaking details of the case. If charged and convicted, he could be jailed or disbarred."
Press concluded that these developments augur poorly for the future of the Justice Department.
"Even after Trump is gone, it is by no means clear that young lawyers will want to pursue careers as federal prosecutors," Press wrote. "Who can assure these attorneys that, in some future Administration, they won’t be told to disregard court orders? Or that a loyalist won’t be appointed to run their office and then fire all their supervisors? Dena Robinson told me that, if she were graduating from law school today, she wouldn’t set her sights on joining the Civil Rights Division. 'I would be scared,' she said. This fear is especially warranted for Black women, who have been pushed out of government jobs in outsized numbers during Trump’s second term."
