The administration of US President Donald Trump has fired over a dozen Justice Department lawyers who worked on two criminal cases against him.
They were sacked after Acting Attorney General James McHenry determined they could not “be trusted to faithfully implement the president’s agenda because of their significant role in prosecuting the president,” according to a department official who spoke with the BBC’s US partner CBS News.
The lawyers were members of former special counsel Jack Smith’s team, which looked into Trump’s alleged mishandling of confidential data and attempt to overturn his 2020 election loss. Monday’s firings are effective immediately.
Mr. Smith was named special counsel in 2022 to supervise two Justice Department investigations investigating Trump. The president had promised to terminate him “within two seconds” of assuming office, but he resigned before being inaugurated.
Both incidents led to criminal accusations against Trump, who has pleaded not guilty.
However, the lawsuits were closed following his November election victory. Prosecutors stated that Justice Department procedures prohibit the prosecution of a sitting president.
It was not immediately obvious who in Mr. Smith’s staff was fired.
Many of those who worked on Mr Smith’s teams were career corruption and national security prosecutors who had previously worked for other administrations and were assigned to the cases.
They reportedly received a letter on Monday that stated that their role in investigating and prosecuting the president made them unsuitable to work in the department.
“Firing prosecutors because of cases they were assigned to work on is just unacceptable,” former US Attorney Joyce Vance told NBC News. “It’s anti-rule of law; it’s anti-democracy.”
The firings come after several of the Justice Department’s senior officers were reassigned, including those with experience in national security and public corruption. On Monday, one of them, the head of the public integrity unit, reportedly quit.
Trump and his crew have accused the Justice Department of pursuing politically motivated investigations against him, his friends, and Republicans. While campaigning for reelection, Trump promised a swift overhaul of the department, which he claims has been “weaponised” against him.
Pam Bondi, Trump’s choice to lead the Justice Department, has reiterated Trump’s opinion that federal prosecutions against him were political persecution, claiming that the department “had been weaponised for years and years and years.”
Mr. Smith has openly defended his work. In a letter accompanying the final copy of his report on Trump’s conduct following the 2020 election, he said, “The claim from [Trump] that my decisions as a prosecutor were influenced or directed by the Biden administration or other political actors is, in a word, laughable.”
Also on Monday, Washington DC’s top federal prosecutor announced the start of an internal investigation of the charging decisions in hundreds of Capitol riot cases, according to CBS.
Acting US Attorney Edward Martin, a Trump appointee, directed his office’s prosecutors to turn in papers, emails, and other information connected to the previous administration’s decision to charge over 200 Capitol attack defendants with obstruction of justice.
