Federal Lawyer Quits, Warns Trump Admin Is Creating “a Shitty Country”

A veteran lawyer at the Department of Interior submitted a resignation letter warning about the complete “assault on the rule of law.”

John Murdock, a top conservative lawyer at the Department of the Interior, has quit over what he calls an “assault on the rule of law.”

Murdock is stepping down after 18 years at the federal agency because, as he wrote in a bombshell resignation letter obtained by The Guardian and Public Domain, “We are headed in the wrong direction.” A self-described conservative Christian, Murdock makes it clear in his resignation letter that the Trump administration’s impact on the Interior Department, and its blatant disregard for environmental regulation, has gone too far.

“Simply going fast and breaking things is not, in my view, the solution,” Murdock wrote. “Flooding the zone with shit is a strategy for producing a shitty country.”

Murdock went on to list actions outside the Interior Department that most concerned him, both as a citizen and an attorney: “Masked federal agents; the abandonment of Afghan allies; pardons and payouts for rioters and those who supported them; the rapid dismantling of USAID; our military likely committing war crimes; plus, a president who demeans the dead and sees himself as Jesus comprise a partial list of the instances that have left my mouth agape.”

The longtime lawyer also cited specific experiences he had over the course of his career. He was especially concerned by a statement from Matt Giacona, the acting director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, who announced to the public that the Trump administration was “upholding the highest environmental standards” soon after completing a large oil and gas lease sale in the Gulf of Mexico. The administration explicitly bypassed federal regulations in the Endangered Species Act, Murdock wrote, and Giacona lied about it with impunity. “I have seen my supervisors behave in ways that I would never have expected,” Murdock wrote.

In a response statement, a spokesperson for the Interior Department reaffirmed the agency’s devotion to Trump’s agenda. “One former employee’s personal disagreement with the Department’s policies does not transform lawful policy decisions into an ‘assault on the rule of law,’ nor does his inflammatory rhetoric make his opinion accurate,” the spokesperson said. “The Department stands firmly behind its work to implement President Trump’s agenda consistent with federal law.”

Murdock is the latest in a string of federal officials resigning in protest against the Trump administration. The Interior Department alone lost thousands of workers following Elon Musk’s DOGE escapades last year.

“I walk away from the stable salary and benefits of a government job and my retirement likely becomes less lucrative and more complicated,” Murdock wrote. But that calculation is worth it, he wrote—“I will preserve my integrity. Thankfully, the arithmetic is easy.”

Soldiers Wounded in Iran Say DOD Made Them Get Their Own Treatment

The service members were left to fend for themselves.

In the early hours of President Donald Trump’s military campaign against Iran, Tehran targeted a makeshift tactical operations center in Kuwait, killing six U.S. military personnel and injuring more than 30 others. Not only did the Department of Defense fail to provide the personnel stationed there with the necessary tools to defend themselves, but multiple service members who were injured in the attack say their government also neglected them in the aftermath.

The Associated Press spoke to a group of nine service members who all claim that the U.S. military’s medical system failed them after they were injured in the deadly attack on March 1.

Army Lieutenant Colonel Arturo Lincón, a veteran of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, suffered extensive injuries from shrapnel, including to his left vertebral artery, which put him at risk for a stroke. However, his injuries were not considered serious enough to........

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