Justice Matters with Glenn Kirschner
Oct 14, 2026 · 25 min · 12 segments
Attorneys are fleeing Donald Trump's Department of Justice at alarming rates. It's not just a brain drain but an ethics drain as well. And that's on top of the people who were wrongfully terminated…
Glenn KirschnerHost
Liz OyerGuest
podcasts.[upbeat music] All right, let's take on a third story, and this one just turned my stomach the minute I read it.
I forwarded it to our friend Kim Whaley and talked to her about it recently as well.
But let me just read the headline: Trump administration plans to have its own lawyers represent migrant kids.
So apparently, at, uh, the Department of Health and Human Services for some reason, they've created a new unit.
Here's the name of the unit, the Unaccompanied Alien Children Legal Representation Division, and here's what they say about the mission of that new unit.
Quote, "This new division will give the department an additional mechanism to provide these children direct legal support while dedicated public servants work around the clock to safely reunify them with their families."
I'm calling this conflictpalooza, but give us your take on this new really corrupt scheme to further victimize an already at-risk population.
Not just children, not just migrant children, but unaccompanied migrant children.
This administration has fired immigration judges who are not normally political appointees, replaced them with people that they think are going to rule in favor of the administration, and now they're trying to take away the last sort of in- lifeline of independence that these young people have, which is their independent counsel who are advocates only for them.
I know from my 10 years as a federal public defender how important it is for a person who is facing, uh, the government to have an advocate who represents their interests separate from the interests of the government and who is advocating for the best outcome for that person.
You cannot have somebody who works for the prosecutor representing the person on the other side of the prosecutor.
One question that my clients used to ask me all the time is, "Well, don't y- don't you and the prosecutors, like, go back to the same office at the end of the day? Don't you guys really work together? Aren't you guys really, you know, part of the same team?" And I'd have to say, "No.
We're really independent from one another," because there's no trust that your advocate has your back if they're working with the other side.
Our, our whole criminal justice system and the immigration court system, it's built on adversity, where one side goes up against the other, and an impartial judge makes the right decision after having heard from both sides.
podcasts.[upbeat music] All right, let's take on a third story, and this one just turned my stomach the minute I read it.
I forwarded it to our friend Kim Whaley and talked to her about it recently as well.
But let me just read the headline: Trump administration plans to have its own lawyers represent migrant kids.
So apparently, at, uh, the Department of Health and Human Services for some reason, they've created a new unit.
Here's the name of the unit, the Unaccompanied Alien Children Legal Representation Division, and here's what they say about the mission of that new unit.
Quote, "This new division will give the department an additional mechanism to provide these children direct legal support while dedicated public servants work around the clock to safely reunify them with their families."
I'm calling this conflictpalooza, but give us your take on this new really corrupt scheme to further victimize an already at-risk population.
Not just children, not just migrant children, but unaccompanied migrant children.
This administration has fired immigration judges who are not normally political appointees, replaced them with people that they think are going to rule in favor of the administration, and now they're trying to take away the last sort of in- lifeline of independence that these young people have, which is their independent counsel who are advocates only for them.
I know from my 10 years as a federal public defender how important it is for a person who is facing, uh, the government to have an advocate who represents their interests separate from the interests of the government and who is advocating for the best outcome for that person.
You cannot have somebody who works for the prosecutor representing the person on the other side of the prosecutor.
One question that my clients used to ask me all the time is, "Well, don't y- don't you and the prosecutors, like, go back to the same office at the end of the day? Don't you guys really work together? Aren't you guys really, you know, part of the same team?" And I'd have to say, "No.
We're really independent from one another," because there's no trust that your advocate has your back if they're working with the other side.
Our, our whole criminal justice system and the immigration court system, it's built on adversity, where one side goes up against the other, and an impartial judge makes the right decision after having heard from both sides.
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