Justice Department attorneys are ignoring federal judges, claiming privileges to refuse turning over records and toying with the clock to disrupt the normal pattern of court cases — pulling straight from the playbook President Donald Trump’s personal defense lawyers used across the sprawling cases between Trump’s first and second presidencies.
The dominance of this litigation strategy coincides with two of Trump’s personal lawyers rising to power within the Justice Department: Todd Blanche, now deputy attorney general, and Emil Bove, now principal associate deputy attorney general.
“We know that Trump views the DOJ as his lawyers,” said Catherine J. Ross, a professor emeritus at George Washington University Law School. “And it almost seems as if the client is telling them, ‘Do what I did in the civil cases and earlier criminal cases: delay, obstruct, confuse, be obtuse, appeal every little possibility and just stall forever.’ That’s the strategy.”