The Trump White House touted its surge of National Guard members to Washington, DC, last summer as the way to put more dangerous perpetrators in the nation’s capital behind bars. But in nearly a dozen criminal cases since the surge began, people who were found to be carrying weapons and charged in federal court have walked free.

The Justice Department has had to drop illegal gun possession cases in recent months after judges on the federal trial-level court in DC have repeatedly found fatal flaws in the cases — largely because the guns were found during unconstitutional police searches.

Several attorneys in Washington say the failed gun possession cases should never have been brought into court because they were weak from the start, and that the cases being charged — sometimes after months of briefings and hearings before they are dismissed — capture a diminished US Attorney’s Office under US Attorney Jeanine Pirro.

Even with crime declining in Washington, the cases have exposed a problematic aftermath of Trump administration policies, nearly a dozen sources say. Those policies in DC have prompted more policing, more cases charged despite their merits, and the gutting of the experienced career attorneys pool at the Justice Department, according to 10 people connected to the courts in the district, including former DC US Attorney’s Office prosecutors and defense attorneys.

These sources declined to use their names in this story because they still have work related to the US Attorney’s Office.

“That should never happen,” a former prosecutor from the DC US Attorney’s Office told CNN. “The prosecutors should know all the evidence and know how it was obtained. If there’s any vulnerability, they should know that and take that into account.”

Pirro rejected questions of whether the cases with faulty police searches were worth charging.

“Look, crime is at a historic low,” she said in a recent interview with CNN. “You can’t criticize this office.”

“We are talking about a period during a surge when arrests increased dramatically, and our focus was on bringing safety to the people of the District,” Pirro said, though a spokesperson, later this week. “As such, we are willing to take cases that are close calls to protect the community, even though that does not mean a judge will always agree with us.”

Since she’s become US attorney, the former New York county judge and Fox News host says she’s taken steps to train law enforcement on the streets in DC to do constitutionally sound searches. That’s included lecturing officers in the city’s Anacostia neighborhood about the process and using body camera footage to show them approaches to searches, as well as training FBI recruits.