The Department of Justice has been doing stuff like that a lot since the Trump administration, to the point that they lost presumption of regularity (the assumption in advance that state actors are being honest and following the rules in good faith). There were so many prosecutions that were clearly directed by the White House and were vindictive persecutions of political enemies that the judges just stopped believing anyone from DoJ.

It didn’t help that all the honest prosecutors in DoJ resigned when they were ordered to do something unlawful, resulting in massive brain drain. All the rehires are unskilled if not incompetent, and sometimes they issue legal statements that sound like a Truth Social post.