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President Donald Trump on Sunday defended the departure of thousands of federal government attorneys during his second term, rejecting criticism that the losses represent a drain of legal talent from the federal workforce.
In a Truth Social post, the president responded to a report from The New York Times detailing a significant decline in the number of attorneys employed across the federal government since his return to office.
He argued the departures were helping remove officials he described as politically motivated bureaucrats opposed to his administration.
“The people that are leaving are Radical Left Deep State Lunatics, who are destroying our Country, and Weaponizing Government,” President Trump wrote. “Many of them didn’t leave, but were fired!”
The president accused the Times of claiming that the reduction in federal attorneys was harmful when, he said, the administration views it as part of a broader effort to reshape the federal bureaucracy.
“We want people that will MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, not people that are trying to destroy our Country,” Trump wrote, adding that many of the attorneys had been hired during the Obama and Biden administrations and “shouldn’t have been representing the U.S.A. in the first place.”
“Let them go on to ‘bigger, better, and brighter’ things in the future — I fully support that, and wish them all well!” he wrote.
According to figures cited in the Times report, the federal civilian legal workforce declined to approximately 37,000 attorneys by the end of March, representing a roughly 17 percent drop compared with the end of 2024.
The report said more than 10,000 government lawyers have left federal service since President Trump returned to office, while agencies hired about 3,200 attorneys during the same period.
The United States Department of Justice reportedly saw one of the largest declines, with its attorney workforce shrinking by more than 2,600 lawyers, or roughly 21 percent.
Other agencies experiencing substantial reductions included the departments of Education, Housing and Urban Development, Interior, and Labor, along with the Environmental Protection Agency.
One major exception was the Department of Homeland Security, where the number of attorneys reportedly increased as the administration expanded legal staffing for immigration enforcement and border security.
