The second Trump Administration is committed to reversing decades of government-sanctioned wokeism funded by taxpayer dollars but working against taxpayers’ wishes. The Department of Justice (DOJ) is spearheading this effort, using every tool at its disposal to obliterate every shred of DEI patronage, gimmickry, and red tape that hinder efficacy. Executive orders fly, newly negotiated settlements with DEI-captured institutions drop daily and DOJ memos warn against the "legal pitfalls" of racial preferences under a colorblind Constitution.
But despite the administration’s well-publicized successes, there are still holdovers from the old regime in key roles across the country who are working deliberately to undermine the president. Often these bureaucrats keep getting away with it because they’ve mastered the very system Trump is trying to reform—or simply Trump appointees have yet to notice the subterfuge.
As they identify bureaucrats willfully ignoring the direction of the president, they should begin by examining the machinations of Hal Goldsmith, a longtime Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Eastern District of Missouri.
In Goldsmith’s St. Louis—which boasts its very own reparations commission, deputy mayor for “racial equity” and a slew of DEI-themed slush funds—Goldsmith is throwing the book at a pair of builders who brought new development to blighted neighborhoods in the city but allegedly mis-accounted the byzantine diversity subcontracting “goals” the city set for them.
Never mind that the U.S. Supreme Court ruled racial preference schemes unconstitutional in Students for Fair Admission v. Harvard or that the Trump administration is working aggressively to enforce the decision. Goldsmith is plowing ahead, seeking hefty fines and prison sentences for brothers Sid Chakraverty and Vic Alston—themselves racial minorities—for alleged “fraud” in filling out DEI compliance reports. But not even the city of St. Louis is defending the program these property brothers are accused of defrauding: the city government shut it down under mounting federal pressure.
St. Louis is one of the most crime-ridden cities in the country, where residents have been fleeing by the thousands for years. Amid this chaos, the Democratic politicians running the city should be focused squarely on meaningfully improving life for their constituents. Instead, they have created a convoluted DEI apparatus that has proven impossible to follow—even with the best of intentions. Chakraverty and Alston waded into this morass to build housing in blighted areas. They worked with minority- and women-owned subcontractors, delivered shiny new buildings, and earned tax breaks for their efforts. This is no Enron-style swindle. No money was siphoned. No investors were bilked. If their racial- and gender-preference compliance reports were inaccurate, the only so-called “victim” is an obscure bureaucratic entity charged with administering a program that no longer exists.
If the U.S., Supreme Court says such programs are unconstitutional, the city of St. Louis has abandoned it, and the Trump administration is going after programs just like it across the country, why is a legacy prosecutor at the DOJ quite literally treating this as a federal crime?
Maybe because, by all accounts, Goldsmith is a sincere progressive warrior. In similar prosecutions in the past, he called these kinds of DEI programs essential for “righting the wrong of years of racism” in the construction trades and urged the courts to “merciless[ly]” enforce them.
And he seems to be committed to pushing the case forward no matter what the Trump Administration says. In fact, just last week he filed a number of motions during the new Trump interim U.S. Attorney’s first hour on the job—seemingly so he wouldn’t need to get the approval of the man to whom he’s ostensibly supposed to report. That puts the Trump appointee in the awkward position of having to either sit still and take an underling pushing a case that is 180 degrees counter to the administration’s policy or else contradict Goldsmith and draw the rage of the press, the legal Left and the “Resistance.”
But the latter is exactly what the Trump DOJ should do. Goldsmith’s prosecution isn’t an attempt to uphold the law. It’s an effort to prop up an antiquated policy the administration—and the American people—obviously reject.
This isn’t justice. It’s the last gasp of progressive overreach. Trump and Bondi should drop the charges, ensure all DOJ officials are aligned with their aims to preserve fairness under the law and redirect resources to suing holdout cities for constitutional violations.
In the end, DEI has delivered only division and dysfunction. This farce in St. Louis shows why it’s time to let merit — and the U.S. Constitution — do the heavy lifting again.
Ellen Carmichael, a longtime political strategist, is president of The Lafayette Company.
