Transcript

Trump Admin LOSES IT as MOST DOJ LAWYERS QUIT!!

From MeidasTouch · Episode page · Watch on YouTube

· 17 min · 2,712 words · 23 timestamped sections

This is the full, timestamped transcript of "Trump Admin LOSES IT as MOST DOJ LAWYERS QUIT!!", an episode of MeidasTouch published February 5, 2026 (17 min, about 2,712 words). It mentions 10 people, works and ideas, including Department of Justice, Harry Litman, Julie Lee, Minnesota, Judge Jerry Blackwell.

What this episode is about

The Department of Justice is facing a crisis as many of its lawyers resign, leading to a lack of guidance and direction within the agency. In a striking courtroom moment, an assistant U.S. attorney expressed frustration over the inability to comply with court orders regarding migrant rights, highlighting the chaotic state and diminishing capabilities of the DOJ under the Trump administration.

Key takeaways

  • DOJ's talent drain has led to hiring immigration lawyers instead of seasoned federal prosecutors—desperation or strategy?
  • When an AUSA admits, 'I have no guidance,' it reflects a system in disarray, not just individual incompetence.
  • Recruiting through social media, the DOJ seems to be treating legal jobs like a TikTok challenge—disturbingly casual!
  • Federal judges are now teaching DOJs basic constitutional law—class is in session, and attendance is mandatory!
  • If Judy Judge can't get a warrant, will Franklin the turtle—now a deportation judge—write one instead?

Who speaks in this episode?

What is discussed, and when

  1. – 3:00: Department of Justice, Judge Jerry Blackwell, Julie Lee, Chad Miselle
  2. – 6:00: Franklin, Kate Blanch, Department of Justice, George Conway
  3. – 9:00: Harry Litman, Julie Lee, Judge Jerry Blackwell, Minnesota
  4. – 12:00: Department of Justice, Minnesota, Harry Litman, Julie Lee
  5. – 15:00: Minnesota, Kate Blanch
  6. – 17:06: Department of Justice, Harry Litman, Minnesota, Talking Feds

Notable quotes from "Trump Admin LOSES IT as MOST DOJ LAWYERS QUIT!!"

  • To talk about whether or not I'm going to hold you in contempt. this is astonishing. This is the state of the Department of Justice right now, which is just so utterly, utterly…
    about Department of Justice · at
  • Apply for just a few spots. And now you got people like a top DOJ person at the Trump administration. This guy Chad Miselle, he's going on social media and he's saying if you…
    about Chad Miselle · at
  • Skilled people. They're doing it through social media. And if that post doesn't work from Todd Blanch, they are stealing the IP of the famous Canadian turtle cartoon Franklin. And they're saying Franklin becomes a deportation judge.
    about Kate Blanch · at
  • YouTube channel, Talking Feds Substack, Talking Feds podcast. Now, Harry was the former United States attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania. That means he was the…
    about Harry Litman · at
  • Criminal stuff. And what A USA Lee was saying, if you caught the context of it, is I can't get that. We've had the chief judge of the district court in Minneapolis, also a the…
    about Minnesota · at
  • Everybody, make sure you subscribe to Harry Litman's Substack. It's called Talking Feds, but more importantly, his YouTube and his podcast. You could subscribe to our YouTube as well, but.
    about Talking Feds · at

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

  • Harry Litman — Person · Main guest / referenced expert · 3 mentions · first at
    Brought in as a former U.S. Attorney and DOJ alum to explain how DOJ hiring/prosecutorial capacity has deteriorated and to interpret the Minneapolis courtroom episode.
  • Julie Lee — Person · Referenced DOJ attorney in court · 3 mentions · first at
    An attorney appearing for DOJ in Minneapolis who tells the judge she has 'no guidance' and asks to be held in contempt—used as evidence of dysfunction and noncompliance with court orders in immigration-related litigation.
    Don't you realize that you need to meet deadlines? And this attorney for the Department of Justice, Julie Lee, says, We have no guidance. We don't know what to do. And she…
  • Judge Jerry Blackwell — Person · Referenced federal judge (court authority in story) · 3 mentions · first at
    The federal judge in Minneapolis admonishing DOJ for repeated violations of court orders and considering contempt; central to the episode’s account of judicial pushback.
    Homework. And it's some of this is your own making because of non-compliance with orders and we need to talk about whether or not I'm going to hold you in contempt. this is…
  • Kate Blanch — Person · Referenced DOJ leadership figure · 4 mentions · first at
    Presented as the DOJ 'number two' making recruitment posts (including for immigration judges), emblematic of the department’s staffing crisis and politicized messaging.
  • Chad Miselle — Person · Referenced DOJ official / recruiter · 2 mentions · first at
    Cited as a Trump-era DOJ figure using social media to recruit AUSAs and connected (per Litman) to internal DOJ actions/complaints; used to illustrate politicized hiring and incompetence.
  • George Conway — Person · Referenced commentator · 1 mention · first at
    Quoted for a sarcastic remark about DOJ recruiting tactics, reinforcing the episode’s critique of DOJ’s diminished prestige and social-media hiring.
    For your country. As George Conway writes, All you young lawyers should hold out until the DOJ starts offering huge blocks of Melania movie tickets as recruiting bonuses. By…

Companies & orgs

  • Department of Justice — Company · Business focus · 7 mentions · first at
    Central to the discussion about the current state of the DOJ, its staffing issues, and its recruitment tactics.

Places & events

  • Minnesota — Place · Setting · 6 mentions · first at
    Mentioned as a location where the DOJ's issues are particularly acute, with offices being hollowed out.

Media & podcasts

  • Talking Feds — Media · Referenced media · 2 mentions · first at
    Mentioned as a source of information and analysis on the DOJ's current state.
  • Franklin — Media · Referenced media · 3 mentions · first at
    Mentioned in the context of the DOJ's unconventional recruitment tactics, using stolen IP from a cartoon.
    Work from Todd Blanch, they are stealing the IP of the famous Canadian turtle cartoon Franklin. And they're saying Franklin becomes a deportation judge.

Full transcript with timestamps

We have no guidance. We have no direction. We don't know what to do, your honor. That's what a assistant United States attorney, someone who works at the DOJ, or at least filling in that role, told a federal judge in Minneapolis when the federal judge was saying, "Why do you keep violating court orders? Why do you keep violating the constitutional rights of migrants and other people who you bring before this court? Don't you realize that you need things like a warrant? Don't you realize that you need to give people hearings?

Don't you realize that you need to meet deadlines? And this attorney for the Department of Justice, Julie Lee, says, "We have no guidance. We don't know what to do." And she said, "I wish, your honor, you just hold me in contempt so I could please get 24 hours of sleep. This whole system sucks, your honor. This job sucks. I'm trying with every breath to get you what you need, but I just can't do it. To which this federal judge, Judge Jerry Blackwell, it was almost like a like a teacher speaking to a first grade student who missed the homework. And it's like, some of this is your own making because of non-compliance with orders and we need to talk about whether or not I'm going to hold you in contempt. I mean, this is astonishing. This is the state of the Department of Justice right now, which is just so utterly, utterly embarrassing. And as I mentioned at the outset, I said this is technically an

assistant United States attorney, but it's really an immigration lawyer who was filling in for the role of an A USA because if you've been following the videos that we've been doing, all of these federal prosecutors have been quitting at the Department of Justice. So they they literally don't have the talent. Like they don't have staffs to set aside talent. They don't have the bodies at the Department of Justice to even show up in court. So they now have to pull in attorneys who are like, you know, immigration lawyers and who are lawyers in other departments in the Trump regime in order to uh show up in court. And like you take a look at the recruiting tactics that are being used now to hire federal prosecutors, which used to be one of the most uh exalted and difficult jobs for a law student to get. It was like as competitive as it would be. Thousands of people would apply for just a few spots. And now you

got people like a uh top DOJ person at the Trump administration. This guy Chad Miselle, he's going on social media and he's saying if you are a lawyer are interested in being an A USA, that's like a line prosecutor, an assistant United States. They work under the main federal prosecutors in the office of the different uh federal districts throughout the country. But he says if you're a lawyer, if you're interested in being an A USA and support President Trump and an anti-rime agenda, DM me. We need good prosecutors. and the DOJ is hiring across the country. Now is your chance to join the mission and do good for your country. As George Conway writes, "All you young lawyers should hold out until the DOJ starts offering huge blocks of Melania movie tickets as recruiting bonuses." By the way, you have Todd Blanch, the number two at the DOJ, making posts like this on a weekly basis. This is where immigration

enforcement becomes real. DOJ is hiring deportation judges to combat fraud, enforce the law, and restore order to our immigration courts. If you're ready to decide cases with national impact, apply now. So, they're recruiting lawyers to work in the federal prosecutor's office and they're recruiting administrative immigration law judges, not article 3 federal judges who have to be appointed and confirmed by the president, but immigration judges who used to be a big job and it was highly skilled people. They're doing it through social media. And if that post doesn't work from Todd Blanch, they are stealing the IP of the famous uh Canadian turtle cartoon Franklin. And they're saying Franklin becomes a deportation judge.

This is from the official Department of Justice account. And when you hear people talking about how uh the Trump regime are not using judicial warrants, but they're using administrative warrants, you know how you've heard that? Well, judicial warrants come from federal judges. That's the Fourth Amendment, that you have the right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures. But the Trump regime's position is we don't need those from federal judges. We've got our own judges that we're hiring through Franklin stolen IP ads on Twitter. I kid you not, this is real. And they're saying they're the ones who basically write tickets to the ICE and Border Patrol agents who get to go into your house without making a showing of fourth amendment probable cause or to satisfy the strictctures of the freedom to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures. Franklin is helping write the next chapter of

America. You can, too. We're looking for patriotic legal profession professionals to serve as deportation judges. Your work will have generational consequences. Apply today. By the way, this is how they're hiring special agents as well. Foreign agents. Ser. This is the Department of State. Serve overseas. Protect our diplomats. Investigate transnational crime. Support America globally. This is really what we're doing. I think Anthony Sanders says it right. If you're a lawyer thinking of applying for a DOJ job, you need to one write down your red lines such as assist with cases to seize ballot boxes or mail in ballots, incarcerate peaceful protesters, etc.

Two, don't apply. A job where you need to do step one is a bad job. And that's when Julie Lee, this former immigration lawyer working for the government, filled in in order to help with habius petitions and help with the fact that people aren't working at the uh DOJ as federal prosecutors anymore. She signed up for it and I guess she didn't take the advice of Sanders right there. And she said to the judge when the judge says, "What's going on here? Why are you violating order after order? I'm going to hold you in contempt, counsel. And that's where she says, "The system sucks. This job sucks. Please, judge, hold me in contempt. I need rest. It will allow me to sleep." Harry Litman.

Let's bring him in. Talking Fed's YouTube channel, Talking Feds Substack, Talking Feds podcast. Now, Harry was the former United States attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania. That means he was the top federal prosecutor there. And he hired a whole team of lawyers. A USA's he knows how competitive that process is. Harry was also a lawyer at Maine justice in Washington DC uh the main DOJ office. Now Harry when you see this this is how the DOJ has fallen. This is what it's become and it's embarrassing. What are they going to do next Harry? Are they going to take out ads in the back of like naughty magazines? You know that again do that.

Maybe maybe hunt the Hunter magazine. It's so pitiful. Pitiful pitiful. I'm you know I'm trying to think of an analogy like the best colleges Harvard or Stanford to take 3%. Imagine they're suddenly you know going down to the local 7-Eleven. Want to come to Harvard? Want to come to Stanford? It is really uh you so it's it's pitiful laughably pitiful. Uh, and you could chle a little given that it's all, you know, goes to Bondi and Blanch and the whole gang. Miselle, by the way, who wrote that piece, he was her chief of staff. He wrote the complaint about uh Boseberg that was humiliated uh yesterday by a Republican judge. You could say that, but if you've ever worked there and know the sort of ethos of it and how people were clamoring to have to just somehow get into be able to ser, you know, to do the right thing and so many lawyers, that's what their true ambition was.

This is just tragic. And by the way, and just a few more things. So Minnesota is completely hollowed out. Why? because that's the place where they were ordering people, nah, don't look into this Jonathan Ross who shot Renee Good. But Renee Good's widow, she's a domestic terrorist. Literally at that point, the highest career professionals in the office said, "Man, we are out of here. You guys are nuts." And so the the offices just hauled out of anyone to do criminal stuff. And what um A USA Lee was saying, if you caught the context of it, is I can't get that. We've had the chief judge of the district court in Minneapolis, also um a the a judge in LA say these guys are violating more orders in a month than most agencies have done in their lifetime. And what Lee is saying to him is, I can't stop them.

Why? Why? Why can't you go to ICE and make them just comply with court orders? And Lee is throwing up her hands. She's saying the job sucks and I need 24 hours of sleep. But the main reason is I can't make my recalcitrant clients just do the minimum of complying with court orders. So that's the overall profile that we have on our hands. But how does the Department of Justice, as you say, the biggest most esteemed law firm in the world that everybody uh clamorred it's it's the job that people want more than any other and now it is so in the toilet. You what could possibly happen?

You have places with a third are gone, a half a gone, four fifths are gone. You cannot put these pieces back together again. That's what basically Lee is saying. That's what's happening in Minnesota. And yeah, these ads really speak volumes. You know, they they um kind of pretend they're doing they're still doing the same kind of law enforcement work. They're not. And they have pushed out so many people. Uh so many other people have just get me out of here. I can't stand working in this place anymore. And you know, they can't find qualified candidates. It's it's a stunning indictment of the Department of Justice. And um the you know the thing it brings to my mind as a longtime alum is how will they ever ever um get over the damage that these bastards have come in and s and inflicted on the department in a year. In a single year they've taken it from the premier place maybe in the world to to a place where you have

to you know advertise on X. It's so pitiful, but also, you know, it's really, really distressing if you spend any time at the DOJ.

You know, Harry, we talk a lot about immigration cases and rightfully so. People are being denied due process and being detained without any explanation. I mean, there's there's so much there's so many filings that are happening there with these unlawful roundups of human beings and sending them to detention centers or concentration camps across the country. But,

you know, as I was speaking with someone who was running for office in uh Minnesota's congressional districts, you know, I'm like, not only do you have to deal with immigration and the invasions, you have to deal with every other issue, you know, that's happening in your district. And so, you know, for that congressman, we were talking about affordability and we were talking about education. We were talking about healthcare and we were talking about, you know, all all of those things that you still plowing the roads. It's called, you know, just basic stuff. But on a day-to-day basis with all of these prosecutors who are quitting, these offices are not prosecuting the bad guys also. So, not only do you see them with these embarrassing appearances like we're talking about here, they don't have the resources, but they're not being able to prosecute sex trafficking crimes and uh fraud and money laundering

and you know, bank robbery and drugs and yes, who gets hurt? The people. And it is so um tangible. You know, maybe you can imagine an alternate universe where they just bring in 20 total jerks to do all the reprisals, etc. But that's not it. They're giving out orders. Bondi is very bombastically saying if you can't get behind the president's priorities, you're going to be fired. They're firing everyone. And it's really true. Minnesota is the prime example. Now, we've mentioned that half that office is gone, but that well understates it because that it's got a civil side. So, the criminal side has been completely ravaged. And that means everything the department does. And we're talking about, you know, percentage-wise of cases, it's small, but um in terms of magnitude, it's quite big. the big public corruption stuff, the big uh drug kingpins, the big sex crimes, all the things you're mentioning, you know, they

are not happening. And you can thank, you know, Pam Bonnie and Todd Blanch, uh, when you go and interview with them, although I think that advice that we that people have received is a good, you know, they're going to ha you're going to have to basically, uh, violate well, you're you're going to have to do their bidding. And if that uh doesn't happen to fit, it doesn't matter. They they've said their way or the highway so much that everyone's on the highway now and they literally don't have the the people just to keep the you know the basic uh business of federal law enforcement running. Who would have ever thought it would reach such a low point so quickly?

again been one year and you have pockets of places the criminal section of the civil rights uh division just lost its top four people they resigned Minnesota's in complete disarray the public integrity section along with the criminal section the other crown jewel two count them two lawyers now just and the people who are there report nobody communicates with them from the brass they don't they they treat them the brass does with contempt There's nothing for even those two people to. It is just a complete travesty. They've hollowed out the biggest best law firm in the world and the it's the public who is most tangibly harmed.

Wow. So, people wondering too like how are they so malicious and incompetent with the release of the Epstein files? It's this crew. It's it's it's this crew was involved in it. It's a combination of malice, evil, and utter incompetence combined.

Can you give me 30 seconds on it? Of course. Pad Miselle, the guy who wrote that. He's the one who drafted the complaint about Boseberg. It was decided yesterday by Sutton, who went through and said, "Well, they said in the thing, see attachment A." Oh, guess what? There was no attachment A. They gave him another chance. Attachment. Oops. No attachment A. Instead, they substituted a line from a Fox News cast. This is the highest levels of the Department of Justice and a gang who not only can't shoot straight, can't even, you know, put their their guns in their holsters. It's It's so pitiful.

Everybody, make sure you subscribe to Harry Litman's Substack. It's called Talking Feds, but more importantly, his YouTube and his podcast. You could subscribe to our YouTube as well, but subscribe to Harry's YouTube podcast and Substack. It's called Talking Feds. Thanks Harry.

Thank you, Ben. Love this video? Support independent media and unlock exclusive content. Add free videos and custom emojis by becoming a paid member of our YouTube channel today. You can also gift memberships to others. Let's keep growing together.

Questions about this episode

Who speaks in "Trump Admin LOSES IT as MOST DOJ LAWYERS QUIT!!"?

Ben Meiselas (Host), Harry Litman (Guest), Julie Lee (Guest), Chad Miselle (Guest).

What is "Trump Admin LOSES IT as MOST DOJ LAWYERS QUIT!!" about?

The Department of Justice is facing a crisis as many of its lawyers resign, leading to a lack of guidance and direction within the agency. In a striking courtroom moment, an assistant U.S. attorney expressed frustration over the inability to comply with court orders regarding migrant rights, highlighting the chaotic state and diminishing capabilities of the DOJ under the Trump administration.

What is mentioned in this MeidasTouch episode?

10 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including Department of Justice, Harry Litman, Julie Lee, Minnesota, Judge Jerry Blackwell, Kate Blanch. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "Trump Admin LOSES IT as MOST DOJ LAWYERS QUIT!!"?

The episode runs 17 min; the transcript is about 2,712 words in 23 timestamped sections.

More from MeidasTouch

About this transcript: the episode's spoken words as captioned on YouTube, split into timestamped sections. Reclip.Me locates every person, work and idea in the text, keeps the time it is first named, and quotes the words around it verbatim. Last updated February 5, 2026.