The Justice Department announced Monday that it had fired more than a dozen employees who worked to prosecute President Donald Trump.
“Today, Acting Attorney General James McHenry terminated the employment of a number of DOJ officials who played a significant role in prosecuting President Trump,” a department official said in a statement to media. “In light of their actions, 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.”
The names of the prosecutors were not immediately made public, though they worked for Special Counsel Jack Smith, who investigated Trump on charges related to the unrest that took place in the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and for taking classified documents out of the White House after his first term in office. Smith dropped his investigations after Trump’s election in November.
McHenry informed the employees of their termination in a letter:
This letter provides official notice that you are being removed from your position at the Department of Justice, and from the federal service, effective immediately.
As President Trump declared on his first day back in office, “[t]he American people have witnessed the previous administration engage in a systematic campaign against its perceived political opponents, weaponizing the legal force of numerous Federal law enforcement agencies … against those perceived political opponents in the form of investigations. prosecutions, civil enforcement actions, and other related actions.” Nowhere was that effort more salient than in the unprecedented prosecutions the Department of Justice vigorously pursued against President Trump himself.
You played a significant role in prosecuting President Trump. The proper functioning of government critically depends on the trust superior officials place in their subordinates. Given your significant role in prosecuting the President. I do not believe that the leadership of the Department can trust you to assist in implementing the President’s agenda faithfully.
As a result, pursuant to Article II of the Constitution and the laws of the United States, your employment with the Department of Justice is hereby terminated, and you are removed from federal service effective immediately.
The development came a month after Smith’s resigned as special prosecutor. He attempted to share a two-volume report related to his investigation into classified documents with lawmakers following his departure, but was blocked from doing so last week by Judge Aileen M. Cannon. In a 14-page order explaining her decision, Cannon said there was “a reasonable likelihood” that such a disclosure would result in members of Congress leaking the report to the public.
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