Justice Department Fires Staffers Involved With Jack Smith’s Trump Prosecutions, Reflecting Effort To Purge Disloyal Employees

WASHINGTON — The Justice Department said Monday that it had fired more than a dozen employees who worked on Jack Smith’s criminal prosecutions of President Trump, moving rapidly to pursue retribution against lawyers involved in the investigations and signaling an early willingness to take action favorable to the president’s personal interests.The termination of career prosecutors who worked on the team of the special counsel, Mr. Smith, is the latest sign of upheaval inside the Justice Department and is consistent with the administration’s determination to purge the government of employees it perceives as disloyal to the president.The firings, which follow the reassignment of multiple senior career officials across divisions, were made even though rank-and-file prosecutors by tradition remain with the department across presidential administrations. The firings are effective immediately.“Today, Acting Attorney General James McHenry terminated the employment of a number of DOJ officials who played a significant role in prosecuting President Trump,” said a statement from a Justice Department official. “In light of their actions,” the statement continued, “the Acting Attorney General does not trust these officials to assist in faithfully implementing the President’s agenda. This action is consistent with the mission of ending the weaponization of government.”It was not immediately clear which prosecutors were affected by the order, or how many who worked on the investigations into Trump remained with the department as Trump took office last week. It was also not immediately known how many of the fired prosecutors intended to challenge the terminations by arguing that the department had cast aside civil service protections afforded to federal employees.The action was the latest effort to turn the table on criminal investigations that for years shadowed Mr. Trump, resulting in separate indictments that never went to trial and were ultimately abandoned.On his first day in office, he issued sweeping pardons and sentence commutations to the more than 1,500 supporters charged in the January 6 riot at the Capitol, granting clemency even to those found guilty of violent attacks on police, as well as leaders of rightist groups convicted of failed plots to keep the Republican in power.Mr. Trump has repeatedly said he expects loyalty from the law enforcement community and is moving to put close allies in high-level positions, including replacing his first FBI director, Christopher Wray, with loyalist Kash Patel.Mr. Trump’s pick for attorney general, Pam Bondi, said at her confirmation hearing this month that she would not play politics but did not rule out the potential for investigations into Trump adversaries like Mr. Smith.Mr. Smith resigned from the department earlier this month after submitting a two-volume report on the twin investigations into Mr. Trump’s efforts to undo the 2020 presidential election and his handling of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida. At least one other key member of the team, Jay Bratt, also retired from the department this month after serving as a lead prosecutor in the classified documents case.Both the election interference case and the classified documents prosecution were withdrawn by Mr. Smith’s team following Trump’s presidential win in November, in keeping with longstanding Justice Department policy.The firings were first reported by Fox News.

Justice Department Fires Staffers Involved With Jack Smith’s Trump Prosecutions, Reflecting Effort To Purge Disloyal Employees

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