By AJ Dellinger Published April 24, 2025 | Comments (0) | A sign reads "Enforcement Zone Ahead" on a street in New York City where congestion pricing is enforced. © Deb Cohn-Orbach/UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty Images Sean Duffy, Donald Trump’s Secretary of Transportation, would like to kill New York City’s congestion pricing. Donald Trump’s Department of Justice doesn’t think he has much of a case. We know that thanks to an apparent error on the part of the DOJ’s legal team, which uploaded and then removed an internal memo offering its opinion that the effort to kill the tolls is “unlikely” to win over the court. The 11-page document—uploaded Wednesday night to the docket for the ongoing lawsuit between New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority and Duffy’s DOT before being taken down—was originally sent on April 11 to DOT’s senior trial attorney Erin Hendrixson, advising her and her team to change their approach or risk losing their case. The DOT is defending Duffy’s decision to declare the project illegal. Yet the DOJ warned Duffy’s actions to dismantle the project “was contrary to law, pretextual, procedurally arbitrary and capricious, and violated due process”—none of which seems all that good if you’re tasked with defending the validity of the actions in court. As such, the DOJ’s attorneys concluded “It is very unlikely that Judge Liman or further courts of review will uphold the Secretary’s decision on the legal grounds.” Given that the current position seems to be a loser, the Justice Department attorneys recommended DOT change tact and argue the toll doesn’t align with the agency’s goals and was canceled “as a matter of changed agency priorities”—a position that is more legally defensible under regulations set by the Office of Management and Budget. According to Bloomberg, that argument fell flat in DOT offices. Normally, all of that would happen behind the scenes, and the parties would grit their teeth and move forward with a unified front. But then the DOJ went ahead and uploaded the document by accident—a fact it confirmed Thursday morning in a letter filed with the court that acknowledged it had inadvertently uploaded a privileged document to the public docket and asked the court to permanently seal the document. “Although the contents of the document have been made public in news reporting, the document was filed in error and should not be considered part of the court docket,” they wrote. The court has instead opted to temporarily seal it, though it seems a little silly given how widely available the document is at this point. The DOJ copping to accidentally uploading the document is a bit surprising. Luckily, the DOT’s behavior is much more on brand. In a statement to Courthouse News, a spokesperson for the agency rhetorically asked “Are SDNY lawyers on this case incompetent or was this their attempt to RESIST?” That same unnamed spokesperson called the mistake “legal malpractice,” and said, “It’s sad to see a premier legal organization continue to fall into such disgrace.” At least someone is on the ball in this mess! Daily Newsletter You May Also Like By Lucas Ropek Published April 23, 2025 By AJ Dellinger Published April 21, 2025 By Matt Novak Published April 18, 2025 By AJ Dellinger Published April 16, 2025 By Isaac Schultz Published April 11, 2025 Joseph Winters, Grist Published April 10, 2025