Trump’s DOJ Lawyers Are Hilariously Struggling in All His Lawsuits

The Department of Justice appears to be struggling to keep up with the torrent of lawsuits sparked by Donald Trump’s sweeping actions to freeze funding to federal agencies, and significant errors have cropped up in one of their cases.

In a court filing made Monday, prosecutors were forced to correct two factual mistakes they’d made during a court hearing, according to ABC News.

The lawyers had claimed that only 500 USAID employees had been put on administrative leave, and that only their future contracts had been frozen. In reality, more than 2,100 employees were out of a job, and all future and existing contracts had been paused, the lawyers revealed in the filing.

“Defendants sincerely regret these inadvertent misstatements based on information provided to counsel immediately prior to the hearing and have made every effort to provide reliable information in the declaration supporting their opposition to a preliminary injunction,” the filing said.

The errors had downplayed the scale of the Trump administration’s illegal efforts to dismantle USAID without the permission of Congress.

Last week, some USAID employees received letters telling them they’d been placed on administrative leave with pay “until further notice,” according to correspondence reviewed by The Hill. Some didn’t immediately receive a letter because they had been locked out of the agency’s system. The USAID website was taken down, and when it was eventually restored, it only included a note announcing that employees had been placed on “administrative leave globally.”

In a separate legal battle, in which 19 states are suing to rip Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency goons away from Americans’ taxpayer records at the Treasury, DOJ lawyers made another mistake.

They referred to Marko Elez, the 25-year-old DOGE goon who resigned and was then rehired after his racist social media posts were discovered, as a “special government employee” within the Treasury.

In a filing Monday, lawyers said that Elez was a “Special Advisor for Information Technology and Modernization” at the Treasury, meaning he is a full-fledged employee subject to certain ethics requirements from which a “special government employee” would be exempt, according to ABC News.

Last week, DOJ lawyers also fumbled when asked whether they could ensure that a list of FBI agents who had investigated January 6 rioters would be kept confidential. They later said they had no “intention” to release the names. But Trump said Friday that he intended to “fire some of” the FBI personnel who’d been involved in the investigation, alleging that they were corrupt.

The Senate voted Wednesday to confirm former Democratic Representative and current right-wing personality Tulsi Gabbard as director of national intelligence.

The Senate voted 52–48 to confirm Gabbard, with Republicans falling mostly in line. The only Republican to join all Democrats in voting “no” was Mitch McConnell, a stunning rebuke from the former Senate majority leader.

Gabbard overcame Republican skepticism after previous concerns over her sympathy for authoritarian leaders, her pro-Russia stances, and her rough confirmation hearings. Gabbard’s nomination also raised national security concerns, considering she met with U.S. adversary and former Syrian dictator Bashar Al Assad while she served in Congress. She was reportedly the subject of a conversation between two Hezbollah operatives while on that trip to the Middle East. In December, nearly 100 former national security officers warned Gabbard would become the “least experienced Director of National Intelligence since the position was created.”

Gabbard, who has ties to the Science of Identity Foundation, an extremist religious organization described as a cult, will now oversee some of America’s most sensitive information.

The Trump administration’s Ukraine policy is off to a poor start.

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth is visiting Europe, and met with the Ukraine Defense Contact Group Wednesday in London, immediately telling U.S. allies that liberating all of Russia’s occupied Ukrainian territory “is an unrealistic objective.”

Then it got even worse, with Hegseth telling the alliance of 57 countries, including all 32 members of NATO, that “the United States does not believe that NATO membership for Ukraine is a realistic outcome of a negotiated settlement.

“Instead, any security guarantee must be backed by capable European and non-European troops,” Hegseth added.

Hegseth seems to have given up two main points to Russian President Vladimir Putin, including a key piece of leverage in future negotiations to end the war between Ukraine and Russia. One of Putin’s major complaints about Ukraine has been the prospect of the country joining NATO along with the rest of Eastern Europe.

Coupled with Donald Trump’s comments on the release of American Marc Fogel from a Russian prison Tuesday, where he claimed “we were treated very nicely by Russia,” Hegseth’s remarks suggest the new administration will prioritize better relations with Putin over defending Ukrainian sovereignty. The deal to secure Fogel’s release raises questions too, as a suspected Russian cybercrime kingpin was part of the swap.

While campaigning for president, Trump boasted that he could end the war in Ukraine within “24 hours.” Shortly after Trump’s election, Russia shot down that idea, and even boosted its troop numbers days later. The president’s choice for special envoy to Ukraine and Russia, Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg, has in the past suggested withholding aid for Ukraine in order to force negotiations with Russia, something Trump did just days into his presidency.

In the past few weeks, Trump has said he will use tariffs as leverage against Russia and shaken down Ukraine for its natural resources in exchange for continued support. All of this doesn’t bode well for the future of Ukraine, which seeks not only to end Russian occupation of its land but also better relations with the U.S. and Europe instead of a subservient relationship with Russia. Trump seems more concerned with keeping Putin happy and getting a payoff.

U.S. inflation was up in January, with Americans taking yet more hits from the rising costs of groceries, rent, and energy.

The consumer price index indicated that prices rose by 3 percent in January compared to a year earlier, according to data released Wednesday from the Labor Department.

Rent alone made up 30 percent of that increase, according to The Washington Post’s economic columnist Heather Long, who noted on X that the “core” consumer price index—which excludes the volatile prices of food and energy—had practically stalled since June.

But Americans were still feeling sticker shock for some key grocery staples in January, when the price of a dozen eggs soared by 13.8 percent and averaged $4.95 across the country—a price tag that’s still up by 53 percent from last year, according to The New York Times. Egg prices are only expected to increase amid a widening outbreak of avian flu, which has temporarily shuttered New York City’s poultry markets and skyrocketed the cost of a standard dozen eggs to more than $12 in Key Food and CTown supermarkets, amid a nationwide egg shortage.

But Donald Trump felt that there was only one person to blame. “BIDEN INFLATION UP!” the president posted on Truth Social Wednesday morning.

On the campaign trail, Trump repeatedly pledged to lower costs for American consumers on “day one.” But three weeks into his second administration, Trump has repeatedly avoided answering the hard questions on exactly how he’s going to provide relief for American’s wallets.

“You said that tariff is a beautiful word,” pressed Fox News’s Brett Baier in an interview with the president over the weekend. “There are some signs in the market, consumer confidence, that they’re a little jittery. So, if all goes to plan, when do you think families would be able to feel prices going down, groceries, energy? Or are you kind of saying to them, hang on, inflation may get worse until it gets better?”

But Trump quickly changed the topic, instead lumping the responsibility of rising inflation onto other countries.

“I think we’re going to become a rich—look, we’re not that rich right now,” Trump said. “We owe $36 trillion. That’s because we let all these nations take advantage of us. Same thing, like $200 billion with Canada. We owe $300—we have a deficit with Mexico of $350 billion. I’m not going to do that. I’m not going to let that happen.”

Last week, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters that the Trump administration doesn’t “have a timeline” for alleviating the nation’s critically high cost of living.

On Monday, U.S. Agency for International Development Inspector General Paul K. Martin released a report noting that Trump’s dismantling of the agency will likely result in nearly $500 million worth of food going bad. On Tuesday, he was fired.

Martin’s initial searing report found that the uncertainty from Trump’s policies “put more than $489 million of food assistance at ports, in transit, and in warehouses at risk of spoilage, unanticipated storage needs, and diversion.” He also found that an additional 500,000 metric tons of food are currently at sea or ready to be shipped and that Trump was making it impossible to properly track the $8.2 billion in unspent humanitarian aid.

This report—which pointed out a massive, wasteful inefficiency—was met with a swift termination.

“On behalf of President Donald Trump, I am writing to inform you that your position as Inspector General of the United States Agency for International Development is terminated, effective immediately. Thank you for your service,” deputy director of the White House Office of Presidential Personnel Trent Morse wrote in an email to Martin Tuesday evening.

“Look what happens when you write a report critical of this administration: They fire you the next day,” Michael Missal, another one of the 17 former inspectors general who was terminated by Trump last month, told The Washington Post. “This chills independent oversight, and that’s exactly what we need right now.”

Trump is looking to install staunch loyalists as inspectors general, as they provide critical oversight into the activities of federal agencies.

Both Trump and Martin have yet to comment.