The New York Times and other sources are weeping with the dozens of recent law school graduates whose job offers were rescinded by the Justice Department after the students thought they were about to begin entry-level positions in its antitrust, criminal, civil rights, immigration and national security divisions, and at the F.B.I. This is another good example of how the Times cannot help itself from spinning and editorializing in a partisan manner even the most straightforward story. “The offers were made through the Attorney General’s Honors Program,” sayeth the Times, “which has functioned without controversy,” for decades, it says. See? This is so unfair! Except the fact that something has avoided controversy doesn’t mean it should be free from change, reform, or even elimination. “The program appears to be the latest target of Trump political appointees intent on reversing even the most workaday decisions made by their predecessors,” sniffs the paper. Oooh, these were political appointees who obviously don’t understand a good program when they see one. And those MAGA Nazis want to mess with harmless, innocent, inconsequential “workaday” decisions! (Pssst! Hiring lawyers is never a “workaday” decision, or shouldn’t be, even in the Justice Department.)

Of course, this cataclysm is all Trump’s fault. “The move was part of a domino effect initiated by President Donald J. Trump’s enactment of a 90-day federal hiring freeze. A follow-up memo from the Office of Management and Budget exempted military personnel and jobs “related to immigration enforcement, national security or public safety,” which in the past included the Justice Department program. The hiring freeze has caused confusion and panic in some areas of the federal government that perform vital work not covered by the exemptions.”

And there you have it, why cutting federal spending is all but impossible, Everybody’s job is “vital,” you see.

“Participants in the Justice Department’s honors program have thus far received no such reprieve,” sympathizes the Times, “even though many of the jobs they were set to begin are clearly related to national security and public safety, according to several graduates who were stunned to receive terse emails announcing that their offers had been withdrawn on Wednesday.”

See what it did there? The jobs are clearly crucial according to the law students who thought they had been hired to do them. Yeah, I’m sure their assessment is completely objective and unbiased.

“The program is very apolitical, and we were asked very explicitly during hiring interviews if we would be OK working under different administrations,” said Chelsea Welch, a Georgetown Law student who was set to work in the department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division. Suuuure, Chelsea. There is no such thing in today’s government as an apolitical program, job or employee. This is how the Deep State gets maintained (while Democrats deny it exists).

Over the last ten years, Georgetown Law Center has been one of the most egregiously partisan and ideologically intolerant law schools in the country, which is why I boycotted my reunion a few years ago. Some Federal judges have announced that they won’t hire law clerks from the school. I wouldn’t want the Justice Department to go that far (yet), but I also wouldn’t assume that a student given a job offer by a Justice Dept. lawyer who thought Merrick Garland is the bee’s knees is automatically trustworthy either.

“The decision to rescind the offers comes at a moment of uncertainty and upheaval at the department. It is one of the first of many moves expected in the coming days aimed at ridding the department of career lawyers and freezing programs that select applicants using diversity rules — part of a department wide push to exert tighter control over who gets jobs, according to a person involved in the transition planning,” concludes the Times. Ethics Alarms says “Good!”

It’s encouraging that Trump learned his lesson: no President since Andrew Johnson has been as outrageously sabotaged by members of his own Executive Branch as he was during his first term, and the current Justice Department is the same one that tried to lock him up so the likes of Joe Biden or Kamala Harris could be President for the next four years.

I will also offer this as a personal note, and if there are any desperate GULC grads out there, I invite you to call me for career coaching (703-548-5229). I think I can help. I thought I had a definite job offer right out of law school too, one I was excited about. It was also the victim of a budget cut. The episode changed the course of my life, but also led to great adventures, experiences, and, though I say it with all modesty, achievements. I wouldn’t have met my wife of 43 years had that job not been pulled from my grasp at the last moment.

Then, later, after I had moved from Boston to D.C., it happened again. I was told I was about to be offered an Assistant U.S. Attorney job, and it didn’t happen because of affirmative action: I was the wrong color and sex. When I heard it, I wasn’t angry, I let it go. And I said to myself, this is the life I’ve chosen, and it’s not always going to go the way I’d prefer, or or the way I expected, but it will be one hell of a ride. And it has been. I wouldn’t be writing this blog if I had gotten that job. It all worked out just fine.