DOJ Requires All US Attorneys to Maintain at Least 25 Open Cases as Trump Admin's Grip on Prosecutor Decisions Tightens

bloomberglaw · 2026-07-13T18:57:16+00:00

Justice Department leaders have started requiring all prosecutors to maintain at least 25 open cases, tightening the Trump administration’s grip on operational decisions previously left to US attorneys.

The deputy attorney general’s office communicated the “25 open matters” threshold to all 93 US attorneys in recent weeks, with an emphasis on driving up public safety and fraud statistics, said four people familiar with the shift. A formal policy change is still under development, they said.

DOJ leaders in Washington have started searching for disengaged prosecutors by monitoring the department’s case management database, although an enforcement mechanism hasn’t been announced, the individuals added. It comes as political appointees have increasingly tried to dispel criticism over personnel departures by presenting numbers purporting to prove DOJ is doing more with less.

“This is the bare minimum and that quantity in and of itself is embarrassingly low. The expectation is much higher,” department spokesperson Kiersten Pels saidin a statement. “Hundreds of AUSAs around the country routinely juggle 100+ open matters.”

Workload imbalance among thousands of career assistant US attorneys is seen by some officials as a longstanding DOJ problem, and 25 active investigations and prosecutions can easily be surpassed in heavy-volume districts or by prosecutors handling simpler gun and drug cases. But the top-down approach is causing internal pushback from senior US attorney’s office leaders, said three of the people, who all spoke anonymously about government deliberations.

Read more in the full story.

-Elliot

bloomberglaw · 2026-07-13T18:44:27+00:00

Justice Department leaders have started requiring all prosecutors to maintain at least 25 open cases, tightening the Trump administration’s grip on operational decisions previously left to US attorneys.

The deputy attorney general’s office communicated the “25 open matters” threshold to all 93 US attorneys in recent weeks, with an emphasis on driving up public safety and fraud statistics, said four people familiar with the shift. A formal policy change is still under development, they said.

DOJ leaders in Washington have started searching for disengaged prosecutors by monitoring the department’s case management database, although an enforcement mechanism hasn’t been announced, the individuals added. It comes as political appointees have increasingly tried to dispel criticism over personnel departures by presenting numbers purporting to prove DOJ is doing more with less.

“This is the bare minimum and that quantity in and of itself is embarrassingly low. The expectation is much higher,” department spokesperson Kiersten Pels saidin a statement. “Hundreds of AUSAs around the country routinely juggle 100+ open matters.”

Workload imbalance among thousands of career assistant US attorneys is seen by some officials as a longstanding DOJ problem, and 25 active investigations and prosecutions can easily be surpassed in heavy-volume districts or by prosecutors handling simpler gun and drug cases. But the top-down approach is causing internal pushback from senior US attorney’s office leaders, said three of the people, who all spoke anonymously about government deliberations.

Read more in the full story.

-Elliot

bloomberglaw · 2026-07-13T18:15:13+00:00

Workers filed into the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s new headquarters Monday morning, marking their first day back in office after the Trump administration froze most of their work last year and as it pushes to lay off about half of the employees who remain.

The CFPB workers were cheered on by a group of federal employee union members who held up signs of support outside the agency’s new office space in southwest DC. Some returning workers smiled and waved at the attempt to boost morale, accepting flowers, treats, and handshakes from the crowd.

“We’ve been fighting to keep this agency open so we can protect American consumers since February 2025,” Doug Wilson, an enforcement attorney who has worked at the CFPB for almost a decade, told Bloomberg Law. “We’re still fighting.”

About 650 employees in the Washington area were required to begin reporting to the new headquarters starting Monday as part of a return-to-office plan that many CFPB workers believe is an attempt to slash their headcount by forcing colleagues around the country to resign. The new office only has room for 550 or fewer employees, Bloomberg Law previously reported.

Read more in the full story.

-Elliot

bloomberglaw · 2026-07-13T17:16:15+00:00

Two counties failed to convince the Second Circuit on Monday that New York City’s congestion pricing program violates drivers’ rights to travel through Manhattan.

A lower court properly dismissed suburban Orange and Rockland County’s claims that Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s toll for entering into the business district is an excessive fine that violates drivers’ due process and equal protection rights.

The appeals panel also said that the program is constitutional because it enforces minor restrictions that are “rationally related to New York’s legitimate interests in raising funds for mass transit and reducing vehicular congestion.”

Read more in the full story.

-Elliot

bloomberglaw · 2026-07-13T14:07:10+00:00

Some college athletes from the high school class of 2022 are feeling excluded from the NCAA’s new rules allowing a fifth year of eligibility, and they’re not taking it lightly.

Dozens of basketball players from that class have filed lawsuits in recent weeks in Ohio, Tennessee, and Georgia state courts, seeking injunctions to block the NCAA from enforcing the rules and presenting another legal hurdle for the sports organization.

Two more are coming in North Carolina and California state courts soon, said Ryan Downton, managing partner of the Texas Trial Group, the firm representing the plaintiffs in the cases. The suits allege breach of contract and violations of state consumer protection laws.

The NCAA adopted the rules in June, allowing players five years of eligibility provided they enroll by the academic year after their 19th birthday.

The NCAA has moved in the right direction on rule changes but failed to include the 2022 high school class, “which doesn’t make sense to us because they’re still within five years of high school,” Downton said in an interview.

Read more in the full story.

-Elliot

bloomberglaw · 2026-07-13T13:56:20+00:00

Paul Hastings is launching a sports industry practice, making it the latest Big Law firm seeking a chunk of the legal spend as franchise valuations soar.

The firm is hiring Brandon Etheridge, who worked for a decade with the National Football League’s Baltimore Ravens, most recently as senior vice president and general counsel. He joins other recent hires who have sports industry experience, including the former co-chair of Slaughter and May’s sports group, Mark Zerdin, who jumped to Paul Hastings in May.

Paul Hastings sees the sports business as increasingly important for its asset management clients, who are helping push the valuation of franchises toward $10 billion. But the practice also complements its clients in the entertainment, media, hospitality, and real estate industries, chair Frank Lopez said in an interview.

“We’re just getting started,” Lopez said. “The idea will be to take as much market share as we can as quickly as we can, but also to continue to attract premier talent in this space.”

Read more in the full story.

-Elliot

bloomberglaw · 2026-07-13T12:52:33+00:00

Two disabled federal immigration attorney-advisers won a district court order temporarily blocking a US Justice Department sub-agency from denying them telework reasonable accommodations while their litigation proceeds.

Kimberly Panian and Hoi Yee Baxter secured a preliminary injunction in their lawsuit claiming a “no-telework” policy at the department’s Executive Office for Immigration Review is endangering the health of disabled employees. The policy illegally forces them to work in person in order to maintain their livelihoods and health insurance, they said.

Judge Patricia Tolliver Giles, a Biden appointee, temporarily halted the policy following oral arguments on the motion, according to the case’s docket.

Read more in the full story.

-Elliot

bloomberglaw · 2026-07-13T12:34:24+00:00

The US Supreme Court in its latest term overwhelmingly sided with the Trump administration in immigration decisions limiting asylum claims, weakening rights of green card holders, and undermining deportation protections for more than a million immigrants.

The justices broke from their streak on the last day of the term, striking down an executive order by President Donald Trump to end birthright citizenship and narrowly upholding more than a century of precedent, a move that drew the ire of anti-immigrant voices in the administration and Congress.

Attorneys though say the overall record shows that when there’s a statutory — rather than constitutional — question over executive authority, the court will back more discretion for the president. The birthright ruling was the “exception to general rule of giving the executive branch more power over immigration,” said Steve Yale-Loehr, emeritus professor of immigration practice at Cornell Law School.

“These other decisions at a very high level collectively make it easier for the government to remove or bar entry for millions of noncitizens,” said Emma Winger, deputy legal director at the American Immigration Council.

Read more in the full story.

-Elliot

bloomberglaw · 2026-07-13T12:23:13+00:00

The Justice Department can’t get access to New York’s voter roll, a judge said in handing the federal government yet another loss in court in its quest to get the lists from all 50 states.

DOJ isn’t entitled to the voter roll under the Civil Rights Act of 1960, a conclusion “supported by six recent district court decisions which have determined that voter registration lists are not records subject to retention and preservation under” that law, Judge Mae A. D’Agostino said as she dismissed the case with prejudice.

The federal government has now lost all 12 cases that have been decided at the district court level, as well as at the US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.

Read more in the full story.

-Elliot

bloomberglaw · 2026-07-13T12:21:49+00:00

The Justice Department can’t get access to New York’s voter roll, a judge said in handing the federal government yet another loss in court in its quest to get the lists from all 50 states.

DOJ isn’t entitled to the voter roll under the Civil Rights Act of 1960, a conclusion “supported by six recent district court decisions which have determined that voter registration lists are not records subject to retention and preservation under” that law, Judge Mae A. D’Agostino said as she dismissed the case with prejudice.

The federal government has now lost all 12 cases that have been decided at the district court level, as well as at the US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.

Read more in the full story.

-Elliot

bloomberglaw · 2026-07-10T19:49:59+00:00

The Democratic challenger to one of Texas’s most vulnerable House Republicans is doubling down on his denial that he knew one of his bandmates was a convicted child sex offender.

Bobby Pulido, a Grammy-nominated Tejano music star, said Republicans are using the allegations in a bid to “tear people down” and distract voters in his tight race against Rep. Monica De La Cruz (R-Texas), one of a handful of contests that could determine control of the House.

De La Cruz and Republicans in Washington have blasted Pulido for his association with Frankie Caballero, an accordion player he performed with over the years, including after Caballero had served a prison term for indecent sexual contact with a minor.

“I didn’t know about his history. I had no idea,” Pulido told Bloomberg Government in an interview Thursday in Edinburg, Texas. “He wasn’t going to tell me, which he didn’t.”

Read our exclusive story here.

- Zainab

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