DOGE plan to cancel the U.S. Attorney’s Office lease in Corpus Christi flops

CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas (ValleyCentral) — The federal Department of Government Efficiency abandoned plans to cancel the U.S. Attorney’s Office lease in Corpus Christi last week.

DOGE — as the department is commonly known — abruptly terminated the lease in February, leaving federal prosecutors who handle drug and immigration cases in South Texas scrambling to find a new building.

After roughly a week of uncertainty, DOGE reversed the decision.

“I guess it was ready, shoot, and then aim,” said Matthew Cravey, the president of Cravey Real Estate Services in Corpus Christi.

Cravey is the leasing agent for One Shoreline Plaza, a building in downtown Corpus Christi where the U.S. Attorney’s Office rents space.

“They turned right around, sent us another deal and said: ‘We’re hereby rescinding the termination,’” Cravey said.

About 20 government lawyers, who are called assistant U.S. attorneys, work in Corpus Christi.

Prosecutors in the Criminal Division accept drug and immigration cases from Border Patrol checkpoints in Sarita and Falfurrias.

“From small acorns, giant oaks grow, right? The law enforcement model of convincing someone to cooperate on a low level and kind of working up the chain happens all the time,” said former Assistant U.S. Attorney Jon Muschenheim, who spent more than 26 years working in the Corpus Christi Division. “And the checkpoint cases are the beginning for a lot of long-term cases.”

Prosecutors in Corpus Christi secured about 655 indictments last year, according to court records. They also cover Victoria, which had about 80 indictments.

Houston had about 660. The McAllen Division, which is among the busiest in the United States, had more than 2,000.

Muschenheim said he doubted that closing the Corpus Christi office would save taxpayer money.

“If we’re not going to have work from home and you’re going to eliminate the office space, they’re going to have to put those people somewhere,” Muschenheim said.

The Civil Division, meanwhile, handles land condemnation cases for the border wall.

Attorneys in both divisions work from One Shoreline Plaza, which is located just a few blocks from the federal courthouse. DOGE terminated the lease in February.

Who made the decision and why remains a mystery.

The DOGE website doesn’t list any contact information and the department didn’t respond to a message on X, the social media network formerly known as Twitter.

President Donald J. Trump created DOGE in January, when he returned to the White House. It’s championed by Elon Musk, the brash billionaire who runs Tesla and SpaceX.

In a push to cut costs, DOGE canceled government contracts, fired thousands of civil servants and terminated leases nationwide.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Corpus Christi had an “Annual Lease Cost” of $409,689, according to information published by DOGE on the department’s “Wall of Receipts.” DOGE claimed that by terminating the lease, taxpayers would save $307,267.

Interim U.S. Attorney Nicholas J. Ganjei and John Pearson, the chief of the Criminal Division, delayed a trip to McAllen last week after DOGE terminated the lease, Chief U.S. District Judge Randy Crane said during a hearing on March 3.

“They were both going to be here this week until they lost their lease in Corpus,” Crane said, speaking from the bench. “Trying to figure out where to put 22 AUSAs.”

In a follow-up interview, Crane said the situation had been resolved and the U.S. Attorney’s Office would stay in the building.

“I spoke to the U.S. attorney,” Crane said. “He called specifically to tell me: ‘Hey, just wanted to update you. We were given permission to remain in that space.’”

Crane said 22 assistant U.S. attorneys work in Corpus Christi.

“Originally, they were going to have to spread them out,” Crane said. “Because they don’t have office space in their downtown Houston office for 22 more lawyers.”

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Texas declined to comment.

It’s not clear what prompted DOGE to walk back the decision.

Damon Sidur, a spokesman for U.S. Rep. Michael Cloud, R-Victoria, said the congressman had been working “around the clock” after becoming aware of the situation.

Cloud had multiple conversations with the U.S. General Services Administration, which leases office space for the federal government, and the Office of Management and Budget, which is part of the White House, to find out more.

“At this point they are on the list of ‘potential’ lease cancellations, where GSA is working to find a suitable alternative location for them in the case that it moves forward with the cancellation,” Sidur said in a statement.

Asked about the U.S. Attorney’s Office lease in Corpus Christi, a spokesman for the GSA responded with a generic statement.

“GSA is reviewing all options to optimize our footprint and building utilization. A component of our space consolidation plan will be the termination of many soft term leases,” the spokesman said in a statement. “To the extent these terminations affect public facing facilities and/or existing tenants, we are working with our agency partners to secure suitable alternative space.”

Cravey, the leasing agent for One Shoreline Plaza, said that someone who claimed to represent GSA reached out after canceling the lease.

They asked if GSA could rent a smaller space. Cravey said he wasn’t interested.

“They arbitrarily canceled a lease before it was set to end. And then you come right back and say: ‘We want to lease some space from you,’” Cravey said. “No, we’re not interested in leasing space to the GSA in the future because you won’t honor your contracts.”

After that, GSA sent a follow-up letter.

“We get a letter that says: ‘We hereby rescind the termination,’” Cravey said.

The uncertainty caused a stir in Corpus Christi.

“I was there with them all week. And they were having that discussion,” said attorney Rick Salinas of Mission, who spent several days in Corpus Christi for a trial. “They didn’t know what was happening.”

Closing the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Corpus Christi would present the government with major challenges, said Ryan Patrick, who served as the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Texas during the first Trump administration.

“The divisions in any district are congressionally drawn,” Patrick said. “So you can go find — I’ve found it before — the actual U.S. code provision that lays out which counties are in which division.”

Judges would still hold court in Corpus Christi, and prosecutors would presumably still need office space.

“And I don’t know where else they want them to go,” Patrick said. “There’s not a lot of commercial space big enough to house the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Corpus Christi anywhere near the courthouse.”

Patrick said people in Washington may not know the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Corpus Christi, which is located more than two hours from the U.S.-Mexico border, is a “border courthouse.”

When he served as U.S. attorney, Patrick said the government set aside money for prosecutors to handle immigration cases.

“At first, I wasn’t allowed to put them in Corpus Christi,” Patrick said. “And I had to, sort of, break out a map and show them, look: Here are the checkpoints.”

People at the U.S. Department of Justice had no idea Corpus Christi handled cases from the checkpoints.

“They didn’t know what they didn’t know,” Patrick said.

It’s possible someone terminated the lease based on some metric in a spreadsheet, Patrick said, such as cost or square footage.

“I have no reason to believe that it’s out of malice. But, at the same time, whoever did it probably had no idea,” Patrick said, about the caseload in Corpus Christi or what the impact would be. “You could probably find other offices to get lean.”