President Donald Trump’s Justice Department was recently caught lying in court—and it certainly wasn’t the first time, according to a new analysis.
Slate’s Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern highlighted on Friday that prosecutors “keep lying brazenly” to the judge and, when given the opportunity, refuse to correct the record. “The government got caught red-handed just straight up lying to the 9th Circuit last week. Full-on lying from the Justice Department is familiar at this point,” Lithwick said.
This week, Raw Story reported on a letter in which DOJ officials were forced to admit they dramatically inflated the number of Federal Protective Service agents (FPS) deployed to Portland due to purported dangers in the city. In submitting a list of “undisputed facts,” the Justice Department claimed that the situation in Oregon was so perilous that the president had to divert nearly a quarter of FPS agents to Portland.
Adam Klasfeld, who runs “All Rise News,” posted the letter flagging this error that was sent to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. It turns out the actual figure was closer to 13%. Specifically, “65 of the 86 individuals employed to Portland were inspectors.”
Further scrutiny by Chris Geidner of “Law Dork” on Bluesky revealed that the DOJ implied that more than 100 officers were deployed continuously for four months and that FPS had to redirect “a huge chunk of its workforce for extended duty in Oregon.” However, the plaintiffs clarified that only a fraction of inspectors were ever in Portland at any given time—at most 31, and as few as 20 during some weeks. The correct numbers were far lower than the government’s claims of 115 officers.
In effect, the government quadrupled the true number of FPS officers sent to manage Portland protests.
What’s more troubling is that this inflated figure was central to the 9th Circuit’s decision in favor of Trump. Lithwick and Stern noted that the DOJ’s case aimed to “justify Trump’s deployment of the National Guard.”
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit panel of three judges initially ruled in favor of the administration. However, once the inaccuracies came to light, the full 9th Circuit vacated that decision on Tuesday, giving the court another chance to reconsider the case using truthful information.
The lower court, presided over by U.S. District Judge Karin J. Immergut, issued two temporary restraining orders that the 9th Circuit was reviewing.
Lithwick and Stern explained the significance of this issue: “This is really important because, in some sense, it might sound as if we’re just nitpicking numbers. But this goes to the very heart of why we have judicial oversight at all. Look at what happens when you just take the government at its word!”
They added, “This is why we have judges fighting one another about the role of the judiciary. In the circuit court’s decision, the dissenter, Judge Susan Graber, kept saying: ‘They’re really not telling the truth!’ And the majority wouldn’t even question the DOJ’s numbers.”
This episode raises serious questions about truthfulness and transparency in government litigation, especially when public safety and constitutional rights are at stake.
https://www.rawstory.com/justice-department-lies/
