Stuart’s point of view: The departures will lead to a decline in both the department's excellence and institutional memory, which are essential for maintaining credibility in the courts and ensuring effective operations.
Following is an excerpt from Bloomberg Law, “Justice Department Loses a Third of Career Leaders Under Trump,” by Suzanne Monyak (emphasis added):
At least a third of senior career leaders have left the Justice Department since the start of President Donald Trump’s second term, taking with them centuries of combined expertise, according to a Bloomberg Law analysis.
The departures, both voluntary and involuntary, represent an unprecedented level of departures in recent memory, former officials said, with the divisions enforcing civil rights, immigration, and environmental laws among the hardest hit.
They include at least 107 career Justice Department senior managers in the span of eight months, out of roughly 320 career leadership positions immediately below presidential appointees included in a government directory.
The loss of so many senior managers, many of whom have spent their entire careers rising through the department’s ranks, could take generations to rebuild. The Justice Department is simultaneously hemorrhaging many more trial attorneys and other career employees. …
Stuart Gerson, who led the Justice Department’s civil division during the George H. W. Bush administration and served as acting attorney general early in Bill Clinton’s presidency, said the departures mean DOJ will “lose both excellence of ability and institutional memory that’s extremely important, both in terms of maintaining credibility in the courts and getting it right.”
