Trump Justice Department recruits transphobes with law degrees using $25,000 bonuses

Transphobes with law degrees could soon land $25,000 bonuses with the Justice Department.

New job listings for attorneys in the Civil Division are advertising those bonuses for attorneys interested in investigating youth transgender treatments, according to a new report in Bloomberg Law. The bonuses are also being offered to those interested in enforcing President Donald Trump’s immigration policies.

Related: DOJ hedges on Trump's anti-trans views while defending military ban in federal appeals court

Additionally, the federal agency has begun offering retention incentives in the Civil Division of $60 to $220 each pay period for attorneys who stay on and pursue enforcement of Trump’s agenda in court.

The bonuses come as the Justice Department suffers a significant shortage of attorneys. Under now-fired Attorney General Pam Bondi, the number of attorneys working in the Justice Department dwindled from about 10,000 under the prior administration to 5,500 last November, according to the American Bar Association.

Related: Federal court rejects Trump Justice Department’s effort to access trans kids’ medical records

As for the advertised work specialties, the Justice Department, both under Bondi and now under Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, has aggressively pursued information about gender-affirming care provided to minors across the country.

Trump, shortly after the start of his second term, issued an executive order banning gender-related health care for anyone under age 19. The order, titled “Protecting Children from Chemical and Surgical Mutilation,” targeted care for trans kids, including puberty blockers and hormone therapies.

But federal courts have frequently rebuffed efforts to enforce the order as states resisted what they characterized as violations of transgender youth medical privacy and patient confidentiality protections. The frequent failures appear to be encouraging Blanche to spend more on recruiting lawyers to take up the administration’s efforts.

Related: DOJ denies existence of transgender people in stunning court filing defending Trump’s military ban

Related: Trump administration admits to judge it doesn’t know how many troops are trans—or why it’s banning them

The Justice Department has also faced mounting scrutiny in court defending other Trump administration anti-trans policies. In ongoing litigation over Trump’s transgender military ban, federal judges have repeatedly pressed Justice Department lawyers on the administration’s justification for excluding transgender service members. Also, in litigation over the administration’s passport restrictions, a federal appeals court judge in Boston recently questioned whether a Supreme Court order blocking transgender Americans from receiving passports matching their gender identity also prevents them from continuing to challenge the policy in court.

Last month, a federal judge denied a request from the Justice Department to stay a preliminary injunction that bars federal officials from conditioning or terminating funding for health care providers delivering gender-affirming care to youth.

Courts have also stopped the Justice Department from forcing hospitals to turn over information on treatment. A federal judge in Maryland denied access in January to records from Children’s National Hospital, and a federal court in Pennsylvania stopped the administration from obtaining patient records from the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia in November.

Days ago, the Rhode Island Office of Child Advocate filed an emergency motion in federal court to quash a demand from the Justice Department seeking medical information for minors treated for gender dysphoria. In that instance, the Justice Department was enforcing a court order from a federal judge in Texas that requested records from Rhode Island Hospital.