The numbers are staggering. The letter puts the total DOJ employee exodus at approximately 16,000 \u2014 larger than the 10,000-lawyer government-wide figure we covered last month<\/a> because it includes non-attorney staff \u2014 with 21 percent of its attorneys exiting. The department has responded by lowering hiring standards<\/a>, offering $25,000 signing bonuses<\/a>, and deploying emergency jump teams<\/a> to plug holes in understaffed offices, which the letter\u2019s signatories note with something between contempt and despair.<\/p>\n Why are people leaving? The letter is specific: career employees have been fired for \u201cdeclining to initiate vindictive prosecutions,\u201d for \u201cworking on cases the president didn\u2019t like,\u201d for being relatives of the president\u2019s political enemies, and for \u201crefusing to lie in court.\u201d We\u2019ve covered the last category at some length \u2014 prosecutors purged for enforcing abortion clinic protections<\/a>, AUSAs pressured to make false assertions to courts<\/a>, the entire apparatus of ethical oversight systematically dismantled<\/a>. The letter\u2019s signatories are describing what they watched happen to their former colleagues, and their former institution.<\/p>\n The sharpest line in the letter involves Blanche\u2019s own biography: he spent nearly a decade as a career DOJ prosecutor himself, and took the same oath these signatories took. \u201cThat oath now compels us to speak out against the nomination of Todd Blanche for Attorney General,\u201d they write, \u201csomeone who took the same oath, but has utterly failed to abide by it.\u201d<\/p>\n The practical consequences the letter describes are not abstract. A quarter of FBI staff were reassigned from criminal investigations to civil immigration enforcement. AUSAs from across the country were dispatched to patrol Washington and Minneapolis. Entire offices enforcing tax law, drug trafficking, and community violence were eliminated. Grand juries, the letter notes, have started refusing to deliver indictments they view as politically motivated. \u201cLeaving communities less safe, Americans\u2019 rights less protected, and our national security more vulnerable\u201d is how the signatories summarize the damage.<\/p>\n The letter closes by invoking John Adams\u2019s \u201ca government of laws, not of men,\u201d and calling on the committee to reject Blanche\u2019s nomination because he\u2019s unfit to lead the department they dedicated their careers to. Of course Bill Barr says confirm him anyway, because it could be worse<\/a>. Senators have quite the decision ahead of them.<\/p>\n Earlier:<\/strong><\/p>\n Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, host of\u00a0The Jabot podcast<\/a>, and co-host of\u00a0Thinking Like A Lawyer<\/a>. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email\u00a0her<\/a>\u00a0with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter\u00a0@Kathryn1<\/a>\u00a0or Bluesky\u00a0@Kathryn1<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n The post Former DOJ Prosecutors To Senate: Blanche Took The Same Oath We Did But He Didn\u2019t Keep It<\/a> appeared first on Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Folks are just coming out of the woodwork to oppose Donald Trump\u2019s AG nominee. The latest addition to genre is a letter signed by 1200+ former Department of Justice employees \u2014 career prosecutors, FBI officials, and former U.S. Attorneys who served under both Republican and Democratic administrations \u2014 urging the Senate Judiciary Committee to reject Todd Blanche\u2019s nomination as Attorney General.<\/p>\n The letter, organized through The Justice Connection, makes a deliberate choice to narrow its focus. Rather than relitigate the full Blanche record,<\/a> it zeroes in on what the signatories know firsthand: what Blanche has done to the department\u2019s career workforce, and what that means for the Americans those employees were supposed to be protecting.<\/p>\n The numbers are staggering. The letter puts the total DOJ employee exodus at approximately 16,000 \u2014 larger than the 10,000-lawyer government-wide figure we covered last month<\/a> because it includes non-attorney staff \u2014 with 21 percent of its attorneys exiting. The department has responded by lowering hiring standards<\/a>, offering $25,000 signing bonuses<\/a>, and deploying emergency jump teams<\/a> to plug holes in understaffed offices, which the letter\u2019s signatories note with something between contempt and despair.<\/p>\n Why are people leaving? The letter is specific: career employees have been fired for \u201cdeclining to initiate vindictive prosecutions,\u201d for \u201cworking on cases the president didn\u2019t like,\u201d for being relatives of the president\u2019s political enemies, and for \u201crefusing to lie in court.\u201d We\u2019ve covered the last category at some length \u2014 prosecutors purged for enforcing abortion clinic protections<\/a>, AUSAs pressured to make false assertions to courts<\/a>, the entire apparatus of ethical oversight systematically dismantled<\/a>. The letter\u2019s signatories are describing what they watched happen to their former colleagues, and their former institution.<\/p>\n The sharpest line in the letter involves Blanche\u2019s own biography: he spent nearly a decade as a career DOJ prosecutor himself, and took the same oath these signatories took. \u201cThat oath now compels us to speak out against the nomination of Todd Blanche for Attorney General,\u201d they write, \u201csomeone who took the same oath, but has utterly failed to abide by it.\u201d<\/p>\n The practical consequences the letter describes are not abstract. A quarter of FBI staff were reassigned from criminal investigations to civil immigration enforcement. AUSAs from across the country were dispatched to patrol Washington and Minneapolis. Entire offices enforcing tax law, drug trafficking, and community violence were eliminated. Grand juries, the letter notes, have started refusing to deliver indictments they view as politically motivated. \u201cLeaving communities less safe, Americans\u2019 rights less protected, and our national security more vulnerable\u201d is how the signatories summarize the damage.<\/p>\n The letter closes by invoking John Adams\u2019s \u201ca government of laws, not of men,\u201d and calling on the committee to reject Blanche\u2019s nomination because he\u2019s unfit to lead the department they dedicated their careers to. Of course Bill Barr says confirm him anyway, because it could be worse<\/a>. Senators have quite the decision ahead of them.<\/p>\n Earlier:<\/strong><\/p>\n Folks are just coming out of the woodwork to oppose Donald Trump\u2019s AG nominee. The latest addition to genre is a letter signed by 1200+ former Department of Justice employees \u2014 career prosecutors, FBI officials, and former U.S. Attorneys who served under both Republican and Democratic administrations \u2014 urging the Senate Judiciary Committee to reject […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":155928,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-155927","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-above_the_law"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/xira.com\/p\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/IMG_5243-1-scaled-e1623338814705-620x568-5XGZoB.jpg?fit=620%2C568&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155927","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=155927"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155927\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/155928"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=155927"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=155927"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=155927"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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\nKathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, host of\u00a0The Jabot podcast<\/a>, and co-host of\u00a0Thinking Like A Lawyer<\/a>. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email\u00a0her<\/a>\u00a0with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter\u00a0@Kathryn1<\/a>\u00a0or Bluesky\u00a0@Kathryn1<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"