The Department of Transport (DOT) replaced lawyers defending congestion prices in New York City shortly after Justice Department (DOJ) lawyers accidentally filed documents questioning the legitimacy of Trump administration cases.
The move comes after Dot accused lawyers of undermining attempts to close Manhattan toll plazas. The New York Times reported.
On Wednesday evening, the Manhattan US lawyers’ office said it had mistakenly filed a confidential memo questioning DOT’s legal strategy, urging the department to take a new approach.
In the application dated April 11, the three U.S. lawyers in the case warned that DOT and its secretary Sean Duffy were “very likely” with the goal of ending the congestion pricing plan, The Times reported.
Instead of questioning the legality of the plan, the lawyer said he thought the administration would have better success in court if the program was challenged as an “issues of changing agency priorities.”
Hill reached out to DOT for more details, but a spokesman told The Times that submission of the memo was “legal misconduct.”
The spokesman questioned whether the Southern New York lawyers in the case were “incompetent, or if this was what they were trying to resist.”
A spokesman for the U.S. Lawyer’s Office said that submissions to the website are a complete “honest error” and the office looks forward to continuing to advocate for its clients, DOT and the Federal Highways Agency. Filing no longer appears online on Case Docket.
DOT officials said they were trying to forward the lawsuit to the civil department of the Department of Justice in Washington, D.C.
Duffy and New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) are engaged in the fight over the Toll program.
Duffy said this week that it would cut off approvals and funding for New York City’s construction projects if the state does not end its busy pricing program since the Trump administration’s deadline.
Hochul’s office claims that the crowd pricing plan is working, with the state achieving its goal of reducing traffic and pollution while gathering sacrifices to head towards other infrastructure projects.
New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Agency (MTA) filed a lawsuit in February to maintain the program.
Duffy initially set the plan’s expiration date on March 21, but was delayed 30 days until April 20th. Federal officials said the MTA provided a proposed schedule that could continue into the summer and possibly go until October.
