ETTD: Meanwhile, back in the Justice Department

BREAKING: Federal judge in Maryland joins with judge in N.Y. in rejecting Justice Department's attempt to swap lawyers in the census casehttps://t.co/2ynS4chJnL

— Aaron Blake (@AaronBlake) July 10, 2019

The Maryland court cites the New York court's opinion in declining to let DOJ switch dicks in mid-screw (sorry, a line from Nixon's re-election).  Although the Maryland court notes it doesn't have the affidavit rule New York does, there are still problems with a sudden change of counsel, problems the court just is not having.

As TPM points out, the Judge is no more pleased with the DOJ than the court in New York is, and for pretty much the same reasons:

“Defendants must realize that a change in counsel does not create a clean slate for a party to proceed as if prior representations made to the Court were not in fact made,” the judge said. “A new DOJ team will need to be prepared to address these, and other, previous representations made by the withdrawing attorneys at the appropriate juncture.”

That is frankly, pretty harsh.  The prelude to it is this:

Additionally, the Court also expects that the new DOJ team will be aware of and prepared to address potential conflicts between recent developments in this case and positions repeatedly taken before this Court by the withdrawing attorneys. For example, in defending against Plaintiffs’ Equal Protection claim, Defendants, through counsel, have repeatedly represented to this Court that Secretary Ross, and not President Trump, acted “as the sole decisionmaker” as it relates to the addition of a citizenship question to the Census, and that, as a result, any evidence of statements made by candidate, President-elect, or President Trump suggesting discriminatory animus towards immigrant communities was not relevant to the decision to add a citizenship question to the 2020 Census. 

Those representations, which the Court accepted earlier, are now, the judge goes on to say, are being reconsidered.

Again, not something you want to hear when you're trying to prevail in your argument.

This is more like amateur hour than anything expected out of the DOJ.  ETTD.  Everything.