"Lawyers who served under Republican and Democratic presidents — including Donald Trump during his first term — exited the division in droves last year."
"One year after President Donald Trump’s return to the White House, at least a third of the lawyers on staff at the Justice Department’s environment division have walked out the door, gutting the government’s capacity to defend its own energy and climate policies and kneecapping its power to keep polluters in check.
Over the last 12 months, at least 140 lawyers have departed — by force or by choice — DOJ’s Environment and Natural Resources Division, according to interviews with 11 former attorneys across the division’s 10 sections and analysis by POLITICO’s E&E News.
Those departures have cost ENRD, which at the start of 2025 employed about 400 attorneys, hundreds of years of institutional knowledge. Among the 11 senior attorneys and managers interviewed for this story alone, the division lost more than 260 years of legal expertise last year.
“Of all the many issues that trouble me about this administration, their treatment of our extraordinary career workforce is first on the list. The brain drain from the environment division that I served in for over 20 years and then led, has been extraordinary,” said John Cruden, who led ENRD during the Obama administration. “Many of the best and brightest have already departed, and those exceptional stalwarts who remain now have an overwhelming workload — often doing the work of several others who have departed.”"
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