The Justice Department’s bankruptcy monitoring program is losing 171 staffers who have so far accepted the Trump administration’s offer to participate in its deferred resignation program.
The US Trustee Program staff members who took buyouts represent a broad range of positions that include associate general counsel, trial attorneys, and bankruptcy auditors, according to records obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request. Employees in financial, administrative, and information technology positions also took buyouts.
The office serves as a watchdog for consumer and corporate bankruptcy cases, seeking to root out jurisdictional misconduct, fraud, and abuse, and address local issues that affect the bankruptcy system.
The 171 employees represent a nearly 19% reduction in staff for the US Trustee’s office from the beginning of fiscal 2025, which started with 923 positions. Those include 382 attorneys, according to President Donald Trump’s fiscal 2026 budget request.
The deferred resignation program allows employees to take paid leave through the end of September before departing.
The resignations are part of a larger reduction of about 4,500 Justice Department employees as of mid-June who accepted the Trump administration’s offer to resign, according to budget documents.
The resignations come as the US Trustee’s office goes without a permanent director after its former head, Tara Twomey, was fired earlier this year—casting a partisan shadow onto a typically apolitical role. Twomey has appealed the firing.
US Trustee Deputy Director and General Counsel Ramona D. Elliott said during a the National Association of Chapter Thirteen Trustees annual seminar earlier this month that more changes are to come as part of the government’s broader efficiency objectives.
A Justice Department spokesman declined to comment.
Proposed Cuts
Amid the growing number of resignations, even larger cuts have been pitched for the bankruptcy watchdog under Trump’s proposed 2026 budget.
The budget request aims to cut the US Trustee’s staffing to 669 employees, down 254 positions from the current fiscal year.
The administration estimates 196 of the proposed staff position cuts would come from the deferred resignation program, meaning it has nearly reached it reduction goals. The administration has also proposed cutting the program’s budget to $201 million, an 18% decrease, from this fiscal year.
If enacted, the budget would cut the US Trustee office’s staff to more than half of where it was 15 years ago, when the program listed 1,274 positions, according to public records.
The cuts come even as the White House budget projects bankruptcy filings per full-time employee to double due to an estimated 35% increase in filings from fiscal 2024 levels.
The proposed budget aims to rescale the US Trustee’s office to “focus on efficiently accomplishing the USTP’s statutory mandate while examining additional options to meet core duties and maximize the impact of Program litigation activities.”
The office will also explore options to modernize its core case management system, which is about 40 years old, with the goal of using artificial intelligence to offset limited staffing, according to the proposed budget.
The US Trustee Program operates in all states but North Carolina and Alabama. Regional assistant US Trustees head 89 field offices. The program is overseen in Washington by the director of the Executive Office for US Trustees, which serves under the attorney general.
The office appoints more than 1,000 court-supervised trustees to liquidate companies that aren’t operating. The US Trustee also organizes committees to represent low-ranking creditors in larger corporate reorganizations and takes positions in court on the enforcement of bankruptcy law.
The US Trustee’s most notable win of late occurred last year, when it convinced the US Supreme Court to reject opioid litigation releases for members of the Sackler family who own Purdue Pharma as part of the OxyContin maker’s bankruptcy exit plan.
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