Federal prosecutor from New Mexico resigns over Trump ‘politicizing and weaponizing' the DOJ
After Donald Trump was reelected as United States president last year, Alex Flores had no plans to leave his job at the federal Department of Justice.
But after Trump's second inauguration, Flores said it quickly became clear to him that the administration 'is politicizing and weaponizing the department, turning its powers on political enemies, punishing dissenters and turning its mission on its head,' he told Source NM in an interview on Thursday.
Flores, who lives in Albuquerque, resigned from the United States Attorney's Office for the District of New Mexico on March 7, but made sure to outline his work in response to the infamous directive by Elon Musk to list five work accomplishments.
In his last week at work, Flores wrote in his resignation letter, he 'reminded my fellow prosecutors that although we have now witnessed certain senior government officials engage in gross, politically motivated abuses of power, each of us can stand firm by our oath. By doing so, we safeguard New Mexico's citizens and preserve our own honor.'
Flores told Source NM the request from the independent Office of Personnel Management for five work accomplishments stood out as 'highly unusual' based on his experience in the Marine Corps and at DOJ. Every federal employee is required to report their work to be held accountable to a chain of command, he said.
'The idea that an external entity, not even belonging to the U.S. government, would demand work updates was asinine,' Flores said. 'I think that the purpose of that organization has not been to increase the efficiency of government, but instead to gut and handicap government.'
He said no one thing caused him to leave, but rather the cumulative effect of the department's promise to punish law firms that provide legal support to the president's political opponents; its discontinuation of the Civil Rights and Public Integrity sections' work; and its elimination of due process protections for whole classes of people being deported under the Alien Sedition Act.
But one situation that 'really got under my skin,' Flores said, was when federal prosecutors implemented Trump's policy by questioning Native Americans' U.S. citizenship in court.
'The United States' connection with the children of illegal aliens and temporary visitors is weaker than its connection with members of Indian tribes. If the latter link is insufficient for birthright citizenship, the former certainly is,' the Trump administration argued in a case challenging his birthright citizenship executive order.
Flores is married to and a father of enrolled members of New Mexico Pueblos.
'I found it unconscionable that we were citing that kind of law in legal arguments,' he told Source NM.
Earlier in Flores' legal career, he clerked for then New Mexico Supreme Court Justice Edward Chávez until joining the Marine Corps in 2014 as a prosecutor and then an instructor on the law of war. He took the job at the DOJ in February 2020, during the first Trump administration, according to his resume.
'I have only ever worked in public service, in government, and so it was a natural continuation on that path,' he said.
Flores worked for the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of New Mexico for five years, where he led the Indian Country Crimes Section, a team of six prosecutors who handle cases in and affecting Native sovereign lands in New Mexico.
He said he personally prosecuted nearly 200 federal felony cases and supervised the prosecution of approximately 200 to 400 felony cases.
Flores said he will continue service in the military reserves and is joining a plaintiffs' law firm in Albuquerque called Singleton Schreiber, where he will focus on personal injury lawsuits, environmental injury, mass tort claims and wildfire litigation.
The Indian Country Crimes Section's mission had not fundamentally changed when Flores left earlier this month, he said, and his departure was not about what was happening to the section.
'Good people remain in the department and remain in government doing the good, critical and necessary work,' Flores said. 'This was a very personal decision, and even though I could not go on serving in this administration, I am glad, heartened and grateful that other people are staying.'
SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Hill
7 minutes ago
- The Hill
Texas legislator James Talarico on Democratic walkout: ‘It's time to fight back'
Texas state Rep. James Talarico (D) urged his party to 'fight back' on Sunday as Democratic legislators left the Lone Star State in an effort to block Republicans from advancing House maps that would hand the GOP five extra pick-up opportunities before the 2026 midterms. 'My Democratic colleagues and I just left the state of Texas to break quorum and stop Trump's redistricting power grab. Trump is trying to rig the midterm elections right before our eyes. But first he'll have to come through us,' Talarico said in a thread on the social platform X. 'It's time to fight back.' 'They're turning our districts into crazy shapes to guarantee the outcome they want in the 2026 elections. If this power grab succeeds, they will hang on to power without any accountability from the voters. But Texas Democrats are fighting back,' he added in a video posted on the site. The Democratic legislator, who has drawn attention recently after being featured on Joe Rogan's podcast, told NewsNation's 'The Hill' show last week that Trump and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) 'are trying to rig the next election.' 'I know that sounds dramatic, but … now by redrawing the political maps, they're trying to insulate themselves from the will of the voters,' he said. Talarico told KXAN late last week that he was open to breaking quorum to block the redistricting effort, but called such a move a 'last resort.' 'Breaking quorum is an extreme step, and it's not something that should be taken lightly,' he said. Texas state House Democrats said Sunday they were denying Republicans a quorum, or the least amount of lawmakers needed present in order to conduct legislative business, after a state House panel over the weekend advanced proposed congressional maps aiming to make Texas's district lines even friendlier to Republicans. Texas House Democratic Caucus Chair Gene Wu on Sunday accused Republicans of 'using an intentionally racist map to steal the voices of millions of Black and Latino Texans, all to execute a corrupt political deal.' 'Apathy is complicity, and we will not be complicit in the silencing of hard-working communities who have spent decades fighting for the power that Trump wants to steal,' Wu added in a statement. 'We're leaving the state, breaking quorum and preventing Republicans from silencing our voices and rigging the next election. We are not fighting for the Democratic Party. We are fighting for the democratic process, and the stakes could not be higher. We have to take a stand,' Talarico said Sunday.
Miami Herald
7 minutes ago
- Miami Herald
Veteran trader posts a major warning for the stock market
Human beings and fear go back a long way. It's an ancient survival mechanism, passed down through the generations, as our cave-dwelling ancestors contended with wild animals, natural disasters and each other. Don't miss the move: Subscribe to TheStreet's free daily newsletter The right kind of fear can keep you alive, but the wrong kind can keep you from making a move. "It's only natural," said TheStreet Pro's Stephen Guilfoyle. "Fear of the dark. Fear of the unknown. Fear of the known. You still do what you have to." Guilfoyle, whose trading career dates back to the floor of the New York Stock Exchange of the 1980s, in a recent column considered a certain kind of fear - where you're moving through an unfamiliar environment and you get a feeling you may have company. "Maybe a big cat or something predatory might be tracking you," he said. "That realization always makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. I call that the 'nasties.'"The stock market can be a source of the nasties when the numbers start heading into the red, as they have been lately. And it's not the big cats you have to worry about in this jungle. It's the bears. More Experts Stocks and Markets Podcast: Prairie Operating CEO on energy businessDave Ramsey warns Americans on Social SecurityLegendary fund manager reveals new trades after S&P 500 rally Stocks were tumbling at last check on Aug. 1 on signs of a weakening economy. The Bureau of Labor Statistics said that just 73,000 jobs were created in July, causing the unemployment rate to tick up to 4.2% from 4.1% in June. President Donald Trump promptly fired BLS Commissioner Erika McEntarfer, accusing her being a political appointee who was manipulating jobs data, CNBC reported. "We need accurate Jobs Numbers. I have directed my Team to fire this Biden Political Appointee, IMMEDIATELY," Trump said on his Truth Social platform. "She will be replaced with someone much more competent and qualified." Trump also took another shot at the Federal Reserve chairman, saying that "Jerome 'Too Late' Powell should also be put 'out to pasture.'" Guilfoyle noted that things went bad on July 31 half an hour after the opening bell and "got uglier around lunchtime and uglier still going into the final hour of play." While Meta Platforms (META) and Microsoft (MSFT) rallied, Guilfoyle noted that the "joy" was put to the test early as the Bureau of Economic Analysis posted its July data for personal income and outlays as well as July consumer-level inflation. "Just a day after the quarterly data for inflation had put traders and investors at ease, the monthly data did just the opposite," he said. "Like a jaguar in the shadows, hard to see, watching from just far enough to raise those hairs on the back of your neck." He said Trump "put the whammy on 'big pharma,' sending letters to 17 leading drugmakers and demanding that these firms take steps to lower prices in the U.S. They have 60 days to get on board with his "most favored nation drug policy." Trump also signed an executive order revising tariffs on many nations that had failed to reach new trade deals with the U.S. Related: Warren Buffett sends White House blunt message on the economy "One must remember that while it may not look that ugly at the major index level, the selling was nearly constant on Thursday and markets sold off from an upward burst early on," Guilfoyle said. Eight of the 11 S&P sector SPDR ETFs closed in the red on July 31, and Guilfoyle, known on Wall Street as Sarge, called upon his military experience to explain what happens next. "So, this is where we realize that we may be up against something," he said. "This is where you stop moving, get low, unsnap your Ka-bar and switch your weapon off of 'safe.'" (The Ka-bar is a combat knife.) Losers beat winners by almost 3 to 2 on the New York Stock Exchange and by almost 2 to 1 on the Nasdaq, Guilfoyle said Advancing volume took just a 32.9% share of composite NYSE-listed trade and a 36.1% share of Nasdaq-listed trade, he added. More important, "aggregate trading volume increased across the listings at both the NYSE and Nasdaq as well as across the membership of the S&P 500." "Gang, you know what that means, right?" he asked. "Thursday qualifies as a potential 'Day One' bearish reversal." He said that a large selloff on Aug. 1 would be seen as a continuation of Day 1 and that "we actually need to see a break or pause in between any Day 1 and any Day of Confirmation." (FYI: The S&P 500 finished Aug. 1 down 1.6%.) "Can anything help? Can anything make it worse?" he asked. "The algorithms that control the point of sale stand ready to overreact, force momentum overshoot and create market inefficiency." "You know that as this is what they are designed to do, so keep your helmet on and buckle your chinstrap," Guilfoyle added. Related: Veteran fund manager who forecast S&P 500 crash unveils surprising update The Arena Media Brands, LLC THESTREET is a registered trademark of TheStreet, Inc.
Yahoo
35 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Maxwell attorney says he hasn't spoken about pardon with Trump team
An attorney for Ghislaine Maxwell, the convicted sex offender and associate of the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein, said he has not talked to President Trump's team about a potential pardon for his client. 'We're going to take one day at a time. I know that's very cliche, but it's true, because things are happening so quickly,' Maxwell's attorney David Oscar Markus told reporters Friday after he and Maxwell met for the second day in a row with Justice Department (DOJ) officials. 'We haven't spoken to the president or anybody about a pardon just yet,' he added. 'And listen, the president this morning said he had the power to do so. We hope he exercises that power in the right and just way.' Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche spoke with Maxwell, who is serving a 20-year prison sentence, in Tallahassee, Fla. The first meeting, which lasted for more than five hours, was Thursday. Oscar Markus, the lawyer, said earlier Friday that Maxwell completed a 'thorough, comprehensive' interview with Blanche. 'No person and no topic were off-limits. We are very grateful. The truth will come out,' the attorney said in a statement. Blanche has not commented about the Friday meeting with Maxwell. Trump said Friday morning that he has not thought about pardoning Maxwell, who is appealing her case to the Supreme Court. 'It's something I haven't thought about it. I'm allowed to do it, but it's something I have not thought about,' the president said. 'I certainly can't talk about pardons,' he later added. Blanche's second day of interviews with Maxwell comes as the administration has faced immense pressure from Trump's base and political opponents to release more documents regarding Epstein's case. The president suggested the media turn its sights on others, including former President Clinton, who have been linked to Epstein as well as former President Obama, who has made the news in recent days after the administration's release of intelligence relating to Russian interference in the 2016 election. 'And people should really focus on how well the country's doing, or they should focus on the fact that Barack Hussein Obama led a coup, or they should focus on the fact that [former Treasury Secretary] Larry Summers from Harvard, that [former President] Bill Clinton, who you know very well, and lots of other friends, really close friends of Jeffrey [Epstein] should be spoken about,' Trump said. 'They don't talk about them, they talk about me,' he added. 'I have nothing to do with the guy.' Trump also insisted that he had never gone to Epstein's private island. Epstein died by suicide in 2019 in jail while awaiting trial, the medical examiner at the time found. The cause of his death was reaffirmed in a joint FBI and DOJ memo from earlier this month, which also added that the disgraced financier did not keep a so-called client list. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
