How to survive a purge: the secret diary of a DoJ staffer
By Anonymous
A couple of years ago I began displaying some memorabilia in my office: press clippings, photos, a gold coin with the Department of Justice’s insignia on one side and an image of the Capitol building on the other. They commemorated cases I had prosecuted against those who took part in the violent attack on the Capitol on January 6th2021. When Donald Trump was re-elected last November, a colleague asked if I was going to take them down. “Hell no,” I said. What was the new administration going to do? Call me out for upholding my oath to defend the constitution? I wasn’t going to hide work I was proud of.
In the days that followed though, I reconsidered. Trump started off his term by pardoning every last January 6th defendant, then went after the people who put them in jail. Within the first two weeks of his administration the justice department had axed dozens of prosecutors associated with the January 6th investigations. I’d expected some people to go – every new administration makes staff changes – but this was nothing short of a purge. It targeted some of the best and brightest: people who had sacrificed their evenings and weekends to the job because they wanted to preserve democracy.
Not long after the sackings started, I grabbed coffee with a colleague. We decided to meet farther away from the office than usual to avoid being overheard. We greeted each other with a rueful hug – we’d survived the first cull. “We’re like cockroaches looking for the next couch to hide under,” I joked.
We talked about resigning, something neither of us wanted to do. We decided that the best course of action in the short term was to keep our heads down and do our job. As we drained our coffees, my colleague suggested that we use an end-to-end encrypted app to communicate. Who knew what this administration would use against us? It seemed absurd to take such a precaution in America, but he was probably right.
I returned to my office and settled into my chair. The January 6th memorabilia caught my eye. Before the purge, I’d been in a defiant mood. But my calculus had changed. If the president’s supporters saw these items, I could get fired. It was hardly keeping my head down. I called an old friend whose judgment I trust, and asked her what she thought. She told me to take them down: “Better to make this small compromise now, if it means you can stay for the decisions that matter.” I carefully placed the mementoes in a box and put it inside my desk drawer.
It was the sensible thing to do. But part of me felt like a coward.
As time went on, a chill descended on the department. The hallways used to be a hubbub of chatter about cases, family life, weekend plans, but then they grew quiet. Conversations moved behind closed doors, and we became furtive and reticent. People cried in meetings. I often wondered why I still had a job.
About six weeks into the administration, I got a late-night phone call from my mentor. Over his long career, he has developed a knack for navigating the politics of the job, and has always looked out for me.
Normally we’d have a meandering chat, but this time he had a blunt message: be careful. “There are a lot of tripwires out there,” he said. In a weird way, I found this reassuring. At least I wasn’t being paranoid.
Shortly afterwards I saw what he meant about tripwires. Pam Bondi, Trump’s new attorney general, announced plans to “root out” those in the justice department who “despise” Trump and “don’t want to be there”. She formed a working group to investigate, among other things, the “unethical” prosecutions that arose from the January 6th investigations.
You can tell which lawyers are Bondi’s people by the obsequiousness with which they praise the president. They are her eyes and ears within the department. Some are experienced lawyers who conduct themselves like professionals. Others, not so much.
“I’m dying inside,” said one colleague, who now has to work alongside a maga true-believer. I could hear the strain in her voice. The Trump loyalist has tried to get her to do “things that don’t feel right,” she said. She didn’t go into details, and I didn’t probe, but I believed her. The administration clearly sees the justice department as an instrument for expanding presidential power to the fullest extent. On February 18th Trump issued an executive order in which he essentially said that the law is what the president and the attorney general say it is – not the courts. I fear that means we will be instructed to obey orders which are clearly unlawful.
Some employees are opting to leave. A few don’t like the atmosphere; others, like the lawyers directed to dismiss the corruption case against Eric Adams, the mayor of New York, resign on principle.
Most of us seem to be staying, at least for now. Reasons vary. Some say it’s about “holding the line”: the need to preserve the institution’s values and norms. Others talk about the importance of respecting the election result (“If this is what America voted for, that’s what I need to carry out,” one colleague said). Many are simply reluctant to give up a stable, fulfilling job. Another colleague is close to retiring, so he’s going to stick it out until then (“I’ve just got to figure out how to keep my sanity”).
In my case, I just want to do the job. I get to advocate for the voiceless, speak truth to the powerful and hold the unjust to account. Doing this on behalf of the United States is a privilege I’m reluctant to give up. I try to work out where my own red lines are, though. If I’m asked to do something that fundamentally transgresses my professional code – like declaring allegiance to the president over the constitution – that would tip the scales in favour of leaving.
When I started to investigate my options outside of government, it became clear that a transition wouldn’t be simple. The administration is punishing law firms that hire people Trump sees as his enemies. Non-profits might be next. Prospective employers are wary of hiring attorneys involved in the January 6th prosecutions. As one colleague put it, we “might as well be walking around with a scarlet j6 on our forehead”.
I ran the numbers and worked out that I can afford to be jobless for a little while if I cut back on spending. Our household has adopted austerity measures – fewer haircuts, no foreign holidays, more home cooking. Even being able to think about resigning is a privilege many of my colleagues don’t have: some are paying off student loans or caring for elderly parents.
Sometimes I wonder how much my resignation would actually accomplish, aside from salving my conscience. The attorneys who resigned over the Adams case didn’t prevent it from being dismissed. If anything, resignations serve the president’s goal of weeding out the “disloyal”.
I lie awake at night going back and forth about what I should do, and have to give myself a pep talk to pull out of it. I still have my job and mean to keep it, for the moment at least. I’m doing my best to sidestep the tripwires. In practice, that means “going into incognito mode” as one colleague put it. I no longer say good morning to strangers. I’m not applying for promotions. I speak up less. Before, I never hesitated to push back if a superior took a position I didn’t agree with: my job is to tell it to them straight. But more and more, I find myself biting my tongue. In order to hold on to my job, I’m having to do it less effectively.
Chats with colleagues sometimes rekindle my optimism. Yes, we are cogs in the machine – but we’re not automatons. We swap tips for surviving the new climate: emphasise that we are all playing on the same team, working to make the country stronger. Practise kindness, even when you disagree with someone. Cultivate allies. Adhere stubbornly to established norms and protocols. Freely discuss weaknesses in cases early and often. Trust that a judge will ultimately see through the bullshit. Above all else, stand for the truth.
One colleague told me that he was preparing for the possibility of being given a “lawful but awful” order. He’d have to carry it out, but would try to blunt the impact by throwing as many “bureaucratic monkey wrenches” into the wheel as possible. When justice so requires, as the legal phrase goes, we can drag our feet. And if that means getting fired, so be it.
I’m spending more time than usual in dive bars – there are more farewell parties for colleagues these days. Some of these send-offs would have happened even if Kamala Harris had won the election. But most are for people who, one way or another, can’t work under this administration. We toast their skill and dedication with shots of cheap whiskey, which flow freely.
In quieter corners, people talk about where the department is headed. The word “fuckery” gets thrown about. But the visceral anger of the first few weeks seems to have given way to glum resignation. A colleague who once vowed he’d have to be dragged out of the department “kicking and screaming” has just taken a job in the private sector. I chatted to him at a recent party and we reminisced about past victories. He told me he hoped to return one day and help restore the department to its former glory. It was a nice thought at least.
I leave these events wondering how long I will stay myself. Two months in, the administration seems to have plucked all the low-hanging fruit – people who were widely known to be involved with the January 6th investigations. I expect they will come for the rest of us eventually, but for the moment I seem to have the option of staying employed.
I’m not sure that I should exercise it, though. For this administration, justice seems to be about winning, regardless of the facts. In recent weeks, federal judges have repeatedly torn into the positions my colleagues have taken in defence of administration policy, using fierce language like “heck of a stretch” and “a sham”. One judge said that government lawyers’ interpretation of the law was so far-fetched as to “defy rationality”. Contempt for the truth is taking root in the department.
If I stay on, I fear I’ll be seen as complicit in all this. Maybe I am already? On a recent midday walk with my mentor I asked him, “Are we even the good guys anymore?” He stopped and thought, then said, “Is your work still advancing justice?” Before I could reply, he started walking again.
It seemed evasive to me, as if he didn’t want to think seriously about whether we were in the wrong. Maybe I had lost perspective. Maybe I was the crank in the tin-foil hat crying “fascism” at everything. Or maybe he just wanted to stick his head in the sand.
I find refuge in history. Recently I read “The Power of the Powerless”, an essay by Vaclav Havel, the Czech dissident who became his country’s president after the fall of communism. He writes about how a regime built on lies demands that its people acquiesce to those lies. Daily acts of submission, no matter how seemingly insignificant, “confirm the system, fulfil the system, make the system, are the system”. Havel says that it’s worth risking punishment for affirming the truth, because living in a lie alienates you from yourself.
The other day I was looking at the empty spaces in my office where my January 6th memorabilia used to be. Havel’s words made the memory of my cowardice sting. So I pulled the box out and returned each memento to its original spot. I may regret it. But in that moment I felt like the greater act of self-preservation wasn’t hiding these keepsakes away – it was displaying them. ■●
Some details have been changed to preserve the identity of the author. The views expressed are those of the author and not the department
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