President Donald Trump's Justice Department just got 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 pointed out Friday that prosecutors "keep lying brazenly" to the judge and, when given the opportunity, don't 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.
Raw Story wrote this week about a letter in which DOJ officials were forced to admit they dramatically inflated the number of Federal Protective Service agents (FPS) sent to Portland as a result of the danger in the city.
In submitting a list of "undisputed facts," the Justice Department alleged that the situation in Oregon was so dangerous that the president had to divert nearly a quarter of them to Portland.
Adam Klasfeld, who runs "All Rise News," posted the letter flagging the error that was sent to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. It turns out that it was more like 13%. That amounts to "65 of the 86 individuals employed to Portland were inspectors."
It was also discovered by "Law Dork's" Chris Geidner on Bluesky that the DOJ implied that more than 100 officers were deployed for four months and FPS had to redirect "a huge chunk of its workforce for extended duty in Oregon."
It turns out that that was not true at all, as the plaintiffs wrote: Only a fraction of inspectors were ever in Portland at any given time—at most 31, and as few as 20 during some weeks. Not 115, but 20-31. So the government quadrupled the true number of FPS officers who were sent to the city to manage the protests. And the figure that the government put forth was at the core of the 9th Circuit decision in favor of Trump.
Lithwick and Stern said that the DOJ's case was trying to "justify Trump's deployment of the National Guard." The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit panel of three judges ruled in favor of the administration. Then it became clear that the government lied in their case.
"The full 9th Circuit wiped away that decision on Tuesday, giving its members another opportunity to reconsider the case on the basis of truthful information," wrote the Slate legal experts.
The lower court, with U.S. District Judge Karin J. Immergut, issued two temporary restraining orders that the 9th Circuit was considering.
Lithwick and Stern explained, "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! And 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."