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‘Loyalty to the President’: Former Civil Rights Staff Expose Trump-Era ‘Purge’ Inside DOJ
About 200 former attorneys and staff from the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice are warning of the “near destruction of DOJ’s once-revered crown jewel,” and what they call Attorney General Pam Bondi’s “demand” for “loyalty to the President, not the Constitution or the American people.”
“For decades, the non-partisan work of the Civil Rights Division at the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) has protected all Americans—especially the most vulnerable—from unfair treatment and unequal opportunities,” they write in a letter dated Tuesday. They added that “after witnessing this Administration destroy much of our work, we made the heartbreaking decision to leave—along with hundreds of colleagues, including about 75 percent of attorneys.”
Bloomberg Law reported on Tuesday that the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division will now focus only on “intentional discrimination,” and not “policies that may appear neutral but disproportionately affect racial minorities and other protected classes.”
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In their letter, the former attorneys and staff specifically state that they left the Civil Rights Division “because this Administration turned the Division’s core mission upside down, largely abandoning its duty to protect civil rights,” and that it “achieved this goal by discarding much of the Division’s most impactful work.”
The group blasted Attorney General Bondi, who, they said, “issued a series of memos that subverted the Division’s mission in favor of President Trump’s political agenda.”
“One stood out: it insinuated that DOJ attorneys were Trump’s personal lawyers, an assertion that struck at the heart of the agency’s independence. Bondi’s demand to us was obvious: loyalty to the President, not the Constitution or the American people.”
In another scathing section, they charged that Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon “focused her efforts on ‘driving [the Civil Rights Division] in the opposite direction’ of its longstanding purpose.”
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They allege she issued mission statements “that included fighting diversity initiatives instead of race-based discrimination, investigating baseless allegations of voter fraud rather than protecting the right to vote, and dropping any mention of the Fair Housing Act, a landmark 1968 law that protects Americans from landlords’ racial discrimination and sexual harassment.”
And they charge that the administration “demanded that we find facts to fit the Administration’s predetermined outcomes.”
“Having no use for the expertise of career staff, the Administration launched a coordinated effort to drive us out,” they wrote. “The campaign to purge staff culminated in Dhillon encouraging everyone to resign after a period of paid leave while threatening layoffs if enough staff did not accept.”
Christine Stoneman, one of the letter’s signatories, told Bloomberg Law, “It is a sad commentary that in this anniversary of the Civil Rights Division, the Trump administration has chosen to eliminate a regulation that, for nearly 60 years has helped root out illegal race and national origin discrimination by recipients of federal funds.”
READ MORE: White House Tees Up Trump Speech With ‘Con Artists’ Blast at Democrats
Image via Reuters
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President Donald Trump last week reportedly blasted a group of dozens of U.S. Attorneys for what he viewed as a lack of urgency in pursuing his political adversaries.
The federal prosecutors had traveled to the White House for a photo shoot, The Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday, but after Attorney General Pam Bondi introduced them to the president, “Trump criticized them as ineffective, saying the group was making it difficult for Bondi and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche to do their jobs.”
The exchange between Trump and the U.S. Attorneys “came a day before federal prosecutors sent grand jury subpoenas to the Federal Reserve on Friday, related to Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell’s testimony last summer about the central bank’s building-renovation project.”
READ MORE: Trump Declares Grocery Prices ‘Rapidly Down’ as Cost of Food Surges to 3-Year High
Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, was in attendance at the White House event, the Journal reported. The subpoenas reportedly were sought by prosecutors in her office.
One of Trump’s complaints to the U.S. Attorneys was that they were not acting fast enough and had yet to bring a case against U.S. Senator Adam Schiff (D-CA), a top Trump adversary.
The DOJ reportedly has been examining whether Schiff engaged in mortgage fraud, which has become a common allegation against other Trump critics, including New York Attorney General Letitia James. That case was dismissed, and subsequent grand juries have refused to indict her.
“The president criticized some specific prosecutors by jurisdiction and said he felt betrayed,” the Journal added.
On Monday, Pirro appeared to be quickly backtracking in her office’s investigation of Powell. The Federal Reserve Chairman announced on Sunday that he was being investigated by the Trump Department of Justice, sending markets — and prominent Republicans — spinning.
The Daily Beast reported that Pirro’s investigation is “an inquiry that even Republican lawmakers have blasted as a revenge plot against one of the president’s adversaries that threatens the independence of America’s central bank.”
READ MORE: Warning Signs Flash for GOP as CNN Analyst Predicts House Flip
Image via Reuters
The price of food in grocery stores and restaurants surged to a three-year high last month, even as President Donald Trump on Tuesday insisted he had “defeated” inflation during what he described as “the greatest first year in history” of any president.
“Grocery prices are starting to go rapidly down,” Trump told an audience in Detroit on Tuesday. CNN’s Daniel Dale noted Trump made the claim “on the same day new Consumer Price Index data shows December had the biggest one-month spike in grocery prices, 0.7%, in more than three years.”
Despite the president’s claims, Axios reported that the cost of food in grocery stores rose “roughly 2.4% in December compared to the prior year.”
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“But that masks double-digit price increases for a slew of household staples over the past 12 months, including coffee (+20%), beef (+16%) and candy (+10%).”
Delivering his speech on affordability — which as recently as last month he declared a “hoax” — Trump said on Tuesday, “Under our administration, growth is exploding, productivity is soaring, investment is booming, incomes are rising, inflation is defeated, America is respected again, like never before.”
On tariffs, which experts say could increase prices for American families by nearly $5,000 annually and push nearly one million Americans into poverty, Trump pushed back.
“The evidence shows overwhelmingly that the tariffs are not paid by American consumers,” he said, a claim not supported by experts.
The White House on Monday said that Trump has been “laser-focused on making America affordable” since taking office. Just one month ago, President Trump called affordability a “hoax” perpetrated by Democrats.
Trump: Meanwhile, grocery prices are starting to go rapidly down pic.twitter.com/D5WU4nIVTD
— Acyn (@Acyn) January 13, 2026
READ MORE: ‘Organized Gangs of Wine Moms’ Are Impeding Federal Agents Says Fox Columnist
Image via Reuters
As Republicans continue their exodus from the House, a CNN analyst reveals that Democrats hold an advantage in party identification over the GOP, Democrats identifying as liberal just hit a 50-year high, and Democrats — he predicts — will take back the House in the November midterm elections.
CNN analyst Harry Enten reported that “the self identified liberalness of this country is at a 50-year high.” And he noted that “more folks are identifying as liberal than at any point since the Gerald Ford administration.”
In 1976, 30 percent of Democrats said they were liberal, Enten said.
“Look at where we are today: 59 percent — 3 in 5 Democrats — say they are liberal.”
READ MORE: Trump ‘Laser-Focused’ on Affordability Says White House After Calling It a ‘Hoax’
“This Democratic party is a liberal — it is a liberal party. Fifty-nine percent of Democrats now identify as liberal,” he continued. “That is also a 50-year high.”
Enten noted that “that is not the only good news for liberals.”
“The party ID margin, Democrats versus Republicans. Now get this, in the latest reading according to Gallup last quarter, it is an eight-point advantage for Democrats.”
“That looks nothing like what we saw going into the 2022 midterms when Republicans had a five-point advantage, and of course, took back the House. This is even better than what we saw Democrats had back in 2017, in quarter four, when they had a six-point advantage, and, of course, Democrats easily took back the House then.”
READ MORE: Pirro Backtracks as Powell Investigation Rapidly Goes Off the Rails
“Democrats are gonna take back the House,” he said.
Enten also pointed to the prediction markets, which now say there is a 77 percent chance of Democrats taking back the House in November.
Liberal used to be a four-letter word in this country, but no longer.
The % of Americans identifying as liberal is at a 50-year high. Most Dems now say they’re liberal (59%), a 50-year high too.
Also, the Dem lead on party id is even bigger than at this pt in the 2018 cycle! pic.twitter.com/wriMxybqVG
— (((Harry Enten))) (@ForecasterEnten) January 13, 2026
READ MORE: ‘Organized Gangs of Wine Moms’ Are Impeding Federal Agents Says Fox Columnist
Image via Reuters
Pirro Backtracks as Powell Investigation Rapidly Goes Off the Rails
Democrat Demands DOJ and DHS Reveal How Many Pardoned ‘Insurrectionists’ Have Been Hired
Warning Signs Flash for GOP as CNN Analyst Predicts House Flip
Trump Declares Grocery Prices ‘Rapidly Down’ as Cost of Food Surges to 3-Year High
Trump Blasted Federal Prosecutors as ‘Weak’ for Not Targeting His Adversaries: Report
Trump Blasted Federal Prosecutors as ‘Weak’ for Not Targeting His Adversaries: Report
Trump Declares Grocery Prices ‘Rapidly Down’ as Cost of Food Surges to 3-Year High
Warning Signs Flash for GOP as CNN Analyst Predicts House Flip
Democrat Demands DOJ and DHS Reveal How Many Pardoned ‘Insurrectionists’ Have Been Hired
Pirro Backtracks as Powell Investigation Rapidly Goes Off the Rails
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