Massive firings by Donald Trump’s administration have purged several federal agencies of thousands of career civil servants, but none more dramatically than in the U.S. Department of Justice.

At least a dozen United States Attorneys have been removed, and hundreds of lawyers and investigators who worked on the Jan. 6 and the Trump indictments face potential firing as well. And there is then the resignation of seven prosecutors who refused the Justice Department order to dismiss criminal charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams — leading, now, to a temporary delay in a case that is ultimately likely to result in a dismissal given the Justice Department’s unwillingness to prosecute it.

But apart from the removal of experienced and professional attorneys is what appears to be a radical transformation of the Department’s longtime guiding ethos. To many observers, the Justice Department has become under Trump’s regime a terrifying weapon to accuse and prosecute Trump’s enemies and protect his friends. To these observers, “Justice” now means “Trump justice,” not the way justice is defined in the Justice Department’s manual as dependent on the rule of law, an evenhanded approach to the administration of justice, and the requirement that legal judgments be made impartially and insulated from political influence.

So, the big question for defense lawyers is whether — and to what extent — prosecuting federal criminal cases may be different.

For as long as we can remember, most criminal defense lawyers believed they were dealing with fair-minded and nonpolitical federal prosecutors. Lawyers strategized to try to persuade prosecutors that the potential charges were weak on the merits; that the government could not sustain its burden of proof; that a key witness wouldn’t hold up; that the trial jury would be unimpressed with the evidence; that the jury wouldn’t be “outraged” by what would be presented to it; that there was some sympathetic fact about the defendant that might encourage the jury to acquit; or that there was some “nullifying” fact about the case or the victim’s motivations that would undermine the prosecution’s theory.

A Pennsylvania man defending his sister was shot in the head and killed over the weekend by a man his family refers to as “the assassin.”

Kenito Montoya, 24, intervened in a domestic dispute between his sister and her ex-boyfriend during the early morning hours on Sunday, according to the Upper Darby Police Department.

Now, police are searching for a man presumed to still be armed with the same gun that took Montoya’s life.