Something unusual is happening inside the federal courts: judges are no longer just disagreeing with the Trump administration’s Justice Department—they’re openly questioning whether they can trust it at all.
Across multiple cases since President Donald Trump returned to office, federal judges have issued unusually blunt rebukes of lawyers representing the administration, accusing them of shaky legal arguments, incomplete or misleading testimony, and a troubling pattern of failing to follow court orders.
According to reporting from The New York Times, some of the problems appear to originate with agencies represented by the United States Department of Justice, including the often-criticized Department of Homeland Security. But in recent weeks, the tone from the bench has shifted from frustration to something closer to alarm.
Judges are no longer just correcting filings. They’re calling out conduct.
In mid-May, U.S. District Judge Mary McElroy—a Trump appointee—issued a scathing opinion in a case involving gender-affirming care for minors, describing the DOJ’s handling of the matter as “appalling” and “reckless.” She went further, saying the government had “proven unworthy” of the basic trust typically extended to federal prosecutors, and warned that courts can no longer simply take the government at its word.
That’s not standard judicial language. That’s a warning flare.
A week later in Chicago, Judge April Perry dismissed charges against four anti-ICE protesters after finding serious misconduct in how the prosecution handled grand jury proceedings. In court, she told a Trump-appointed U.S. attorney that while she still believes most government lawyers act in good faith, “that trust has been broken.”
It was a rare moment of direct institutional self-doubt: a judge essentially saying the system depends on honesty—and that honesty is slipping.
Then came Tennessee. On May 22, Judge Waverly Crenshaw dismissed criminal charges in a case involving Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland man mistakenly deported to a prison in El Salvador. In his ruling, Crenshaw didn’t just reject the prosecution’s argument—he described the case as reflecting an “abuse of prosecuting power,” and said the DOJ’s version of events didn’t match the internal record.
Emails reviewed by the court showed DOJ leadership in Washington had labeled the case a “top priority” and actively coordinated with Homeland Security officials, undercutting claims that the prosecution was independently driven.
Put together, the rulings point to a broader tension: judges are increasingly questioning what legal insiders have long called the “presumption of regularity”—the idea that government attorneys can generally be trusted to act properly and tell the truth in court.
That presumption has been a quiet pillar of the post-Watergate legal order. If judges stop believing it, the system gets a lot harder to run.
Legal scholars told The New York Times that the erosion of that trust threatens basic courtroom function. After Watergate, DOJ attorneys were expected to operate under heightened ethical expectations—often summarized by former judge Patricia Wald as the “five Cs”: competence, credibility, civility, consistency, and candor.
That last one—candor—is where things seem to be breaking down.
“You can’t hide the ball,” Harvard Law professor and former DOJ official Andrew Mergen told The New York Times, adding that judges accusing federal prosecutors of dishonesty is “such an extraordinarily awful look for the Justice Department.”
The DOJ pushed back hard. A spokesperson called the criticism “outrageous and unjustified,” and said the department will continue defending Trump’s agenda “with the utmost respect for the institution and rule of law.”
But the tension now is obvious. Judges are no longer treating these disputes as routine legal disagreements. They’re treating them as credibility problems.
And once a court starts questioning whether it can trust what the government tells it, the issue stops being about any single case—and starts becoming about the system itself.
