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(WASHINGTON) — Three weeks into Donald Trump’s breakneck effort to remake the federal government, the rapid pace of lawsuits pushing back against his orders — and a number of legal setbacks for the Trump administration — have challenged the Department of Justice, seemingly overwhelming the government lawyers tasked with defending the president in court.

In a court filing Monday night, Justice Department lawyers acknowledged making two significant errors last week during a court hearing about the dismantling of the foreign aid agency USAID. While DOJ attorneys last week claimed that 500 employees at USAID had been put on leave and that only future contracts had been put on pause, more than 2,100 employees had actually been placed on leave while both future and existing contracts were frozen, according to the filing.

“Defendants sincerely regret these inadvertent misstatements based on information provided to counsel immediately prior to the hearing and have made every effort to provide reliable information in the declaration supporting their opposition to a preliminary injunction,” DOJ lawyers wrote to the judge overseeing the case.

During the USAID hearing last week, Judge Carl Nichols, a Trump appointee, expressed frustration that the government had not provided him sufficient information.

“I need to know what the government’s official position is right now. What is happening?” Nichols said. “Is the government paying people or not?”

The Trump administration has faced a torrent of lawsuits over the last two weeks, with judges over the last two days blocking them from enforcing a federal buyout program, cutting funding for health research, and removing public health data from government websites.

After a New York judge blocked Trump’s new Department of Government Efficiency from accessing Treasury Department records on Saturday, both DOGE head Elon Musk and Vice President JD Vance began to publicly float the idea of defying the court orders.

Justice Department representatives did not respond to a request for comment from ABC News.

During a hearing in the Treasury Department case, the DOJ claimed that Marko Elez — a SpaceX employee-turned-DOGE cost-cutter who briefly resigned last week after the Wall Street Journal reported on racist social media posts — was a “special government employee” within the Department of the Treasury.

In a filing Monday, the DOJ corrected themselves to note that Elez was actually a full-fledged Treasury Department employee — a “Special Advisor for Information Technology and Modernization” according to the filing — who is subject to additional ethics requirements.

During a hearing last week on whether the DOJ should be blocked from disseminating a list of federal agents and employees who worked on cases involving the Jan. 6 Capitol attack, a DOJ attorney was unable to say with confidence whether the government might eventually release the list, frustrating the judge overseeing the case.

“You represent the government,” U.S. District Judge Jia Cobb said sternly. “The White House wants this information. Does the government have present intent to publicly release names of FBI agents that worked on Jan. 6 cases?”

“People who have the list don’t have present intent,” replied the attorney, Jeremy Simon, who then had to ask for a series of short recesses as he was pressed to provide answers on the government’s stance.

At one point Simon needed to excuse himself into the hallway to speak by phone with his superiors.

The legal challenges began immediately after Trump ignited his barrage of Day-1 executive orders. During a hearing on the administration’s short-lived federal funding freeze, a DOJ attorney appeared unable to provide a clear answer about the extent of the White House’s new policy.

“It seems like the federal government currently doesn’t actually know the full scope of the programs that are going to be subject to the pause. Is that correct?” U.S. District Judge Loren L. AliKhan asked the attorney.

“I can only speak for myself, which is just based on the limited time frame here, that I do not have a comprehensive list,” replied DOJ lawyer Daniel Schwei. “It just depends.”

And during the first court hearing about Trump’s executive order on birthright citizenship, the position of defending Trump’s order put Brett Shumate, the acting assistant attorney general for the DOJ’s civil division, in a federal judge’s firing line.

“In your opinion, is this executive order constitutional?” U.S. District Judge John Coughenour asked Shumate during the hearing.

“Yes, we think it is,” Shumate said, drawing the judge’s rebuke.

“I have difficulty understanding how a member of the bar can state unequivocally that this is a constitutional order. It boggles my mind,” Coughenour said. “Where were the lawyers when this decision was being made?”

A constitutional law expert told ABC News that DOJ attorneys have been rebuked by judges of all stripes.

“They are doing this regardless of geography and regardless of who appointed them,” said Loyola Marymount University law professor Justin Levitt. “So you’ve seen pushback from Reagan appointees, you’ve seen pushback from Bush appointees, you’ve seen pushback from Obama appointees and Trump appointees and Biden appointees, and that’s going to continue.”

Levitt said the results have generally not been in the Trump administration’s favor.

“As far as I can tell, they’re winless in the courts,” he said.

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(NEW YORK) — Refrigerators, beers and bicycles stand at risk of higher prices as a result of tariffs on steel and aluminum announced by President Donald Trump this week, experts told ABC News.

The tariffs, which take effect next month, slap a 25% tax on all foreign steel and aluminum, repeating a policy Trump initiated during his first term in office.

Trade experts told ABC News the tariffs will likely raise prices for some goods made out of the two metals, since importers typically pass along a share of the cost of those higher taxes to retailers and, in turn, down the line to consumers.

“This will feed through the economy,” Kyle Handley, a professor of economics at the University of California, San Diego, told ABC News. Higher prices could manifest in as little as three months or as long as a year, Handley added.

In response to ABC News’ request for comment, the White House said the policy would boost economic performance.

“In his first administration, President Trump instituted an America First economic agenda of tariffs, tax cuts, deregulation and an unleashing of American energy that resulted in historic job, wage and investment growth with no inflation. In his second administration, President Trump will again use tariffs to level the playing field and usher in a new era of growth and prosperity for American industry and workers,” White House spokesperson Kush Desai said.

Here are the prices that may increase as a result of tariffs on steel and aluminum:

Cars and trucks

Steel is the top material by weight in a car, accounting for about 60% of its weight, according to the American Iron and Steel Institute.

Once steel imports face stiff taxes, experts forecast the price of steel paid by U.S. manufacturers will rise, meaning higher input costs for carmakers. Those companies, they added, are likely to hike prices for consumers as a means of offsetting some of those costs.

“There’s a lot of metal in a Ford truck,” Handley said. “If it’s more expensive, they’ll have to charge more for the car.”

Ford declined to respond to ABC News’ request for comment. Speaking on Tuesday at the Wolfe Research conference, an investor gathering, Ford CEO Jim Farley said potential tariffs on steel and aluminum are causing “cost and chaos,” according to a transcript of the event shared by Ford.

Bill Hanvey, president and CEO of Auto Care Association, a trade group representing thousands of firms across the vehicle supply chain, criticized the steel tariffs.

“Many specialty steel products used in our industry are not readily available from domestic sources, making access to global supply chains essential,” Hanvey said in a statement.

Soda and beer

Aluminum tariffs risk higher prices for beverages packaged in aluminum cans, such as beer and soft drinks, some experts said.

The previous set of tariffs on aluminum cost the U.S. beverage industry $1.7 billion between 2018 and 2022, according to the Beer Institute, an industry trade group.

“Paying a tariff-laden price on all aluminum drives up the cost of doing business and makes consumer goods more expensive,” the Beer Institute said in 2022.

In response to the tariffs imposed by Trump this week, the Illinois Craft Brewers Guild warned on X: “Our small brewery owners and customers will pay the price.”

Some soda companies may also feel the pinch. Speaking on an earnings call on Tuesday, Coca-Cola CEO James Quincey said the company may focus on a different packaging material if aluminum prices rise.

Home appliances

Major home appliances — such as refrigerators and washing machines — rely in part on steel, making them vulnerable to potential price increases, Jason Miller, a professor of supply chain management at Michigan State University, told ABC News.

“You would certainly expect to see those goods get a little bit more expensive,” Miller said.

In the aftermath of steel and aluminum tariffs during Trump’s first term, major appliances showed price increases of between 5% and 10% between June 2018 and April 2019, Miller added, citing a monthly government data release. Those price hikes far outpaced an overall inflation rate of around 2%.

Though prices for major appliances started to decline in the latter part of 2019, Miller noted, forecasting at the very least a halt in the price drops.

Bicycles

Steel and aluminum make up a key component of bicycles, raising the likelihood of price increases, Handley said.

“Bicycles will definitely be more expensive,” Handley said, pointing to the aluminum used for bicycle frames and components. In some cases, he added, those raw materials depend on steel.

Last month, trade organization People For Bikes expressed concern about 25% tariffs issued for Canadian and Mexican goods, as well as a 10% tariff on Chinese goods. Within days, Trump paused the tariffs on Mexico and Canada for one month, though they remain on the table.

“As a result of the new administration’s policies, the international trade landscape has become, and will remain, increasingly turbulent,” Matt Moore, policy counsel at People For Bikes, wrote in a blog post.

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(WASHINGTON) — The Trump administration has removed a career Justice Department official from his role as the acting head of the DOJ’s National Security Division after the longtime prosecutor served in the position for less than a month, sources told ABC News.

Devin DeBacker, who in that role was an acting assistant attorney general, served for only a few weeks in the position, which helps oversee the Justice Department’s efforts to fight global terrorism, root out domestic extremism, stop foreign espionage operations, enforce U.S. sanctions, and investigate leaks of classified information.

In the first few days of the new Trump administration, as previously reported by ABC News, DeBacker tried to ease concerns within the department’s National Security Division after two of its most experienced prosecutors were removed.

But on Monday, Justice Department leadership told DeBacker that he would no longer be leading the division, according to sources familiar with the matter. It’s unclear why DeBacker was removed, and a Justice Department spokesperson declined to comment about the matter.

Under the first Trump administration, DeBacker served in the White House counsel’s office and then the Justice Department. He left at the start of the Biden administration, but rejoined the Justice Department a year later, becoming chief of the National Security Division’s foreign investment review section.

Sources said he is expected to continue in that role.

On his LinkedIn page, DeBacker describes himself as “a strategic counselor and senior government executive with deep experience in national security, complex litigation and investigations, and crisis and risk management.”

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