In a scalding order that called the Justice Department’s motion to change lawyers “patently deficient,” a federal judge in Manhattan on Tuesday blocked the move by the Justice Department to withdraw several of its attorneys from the census citizenship question case in New York.
With the exception of two DOJ lawyers who are withdrawing from the case because they have left their position at the Justice Department altogether, U.S. District Judge Jesse Furman is not letting the other attorneys withdraw because the department failed to provide “satisfactory reasons” for their exit from the case.
“Defendants provide no reasons, let alone ‘satisfactory reasons,’ for the substitution of counsel,” Furman said. Furman said that the government’s vague claim in its withdrawal motion that it did not expect the withdrawal to cause disruption to the proceedings was “not good enough, particularly given the circumstances of this case.”
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“As this Court observed many months ago, this case has been litigated on the premise — based ‘in no small part’ on Defendants’ own ‘insist[ence]’ — that the speedy resolution of Plaintiffs’ claims is a matter of great private and public importance,” Furman said in his order Tuesday. “If anything, that urgency — and the need for efficient judicial proceedings — has only grown since that time.”
The Department of Justice has not offered many details as to why it was shaking up its legal team, prompting speculation that the career attorneys were not comfortable with the direction the administration was going in trying to get the question re-added.
In comments to the press on Monday Attorney General Bill Barr said that he could “understand if they’re interested in not participating in this phase.” But he also said he did not know the details as to why they were exiting the case.
On Tuesday, Furman raked the Justice Department over the coals for its failures to meet the procedural requirements for replacing its attorneys.
See here for some background, though note that that post is primarily about the Maryland case, while this is about the New York case. I could not tell if there was a similar effort by the attorneys in that case to withdraw. This all happened in a hurry, from the initial announcement to the pushback by the plaintiffs, to the judge’s order. What happens next is anyone’s guess, for both cases. Remember, the whole reason why SCOTUS took this case when it did was because the Trump administration insisted they needed to have everything resolved by the end of June to have enough time to actually do the Census. So much for that. How big a chump does Donald Trump think John Roberts is? We’re about to find out. A copy of the judge’s order is here, and Daily Kos and Politico have more.
UPDATE: The Maryland judge has also rejected a request for the Justice Department attorneys to withdraw, though he will allow the request to be re-submitted.
Aggravating a Federal judge is rarely a good idea, and that is one ticked off Federal judge. Two of the lawyers were let out because they now have new jobs; the other nine apparently didn’t say why they should be allowed to withdraw, nor did they address the motion for sanctions that’s pending against them. “Because I want to” is generally not a good reason to be allowed to withdraw, particularly when a case is on a short fuse with a bunch of upcoming deadlines.
The order is available at https://www.politico.com/f/?id=0000016b-d8c3-dfc2-a9ff-fae31b2a0001