White House abruptly fires career Justice Department prosecutors in latest norm-shattering move
The recent firings of career Justice Department lawyers by the White House is a sign of President Donald Trump’s tightening grip over the law enforcement agency known for its long tradition of political independence
WASHINGTON (AP) — The recent firings of career Justice Department lawyers by the White House is a sign of President Donald Trump's tightening grip over the law enforcement agency known for its long tradition of political independence.
On Friday, an assistant U.S. attorney in Los Angeles was fired without explanation in an terse email from the White House Presidential Personnel Office shortly after a right-wing activist posted about him on social media, according to a person familiar with the matter. The person spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were concerned about potential retribution.
That followed the White House's firing last week of a longtime career prosecutor who had been serving as acting U.S. attorney in Memphis, Tennessee.
The terminations marked an escalation of norm-shattering moves that have embroiled the Justice Department in turmoil and have raised alarm over a disregard for civil service protections for career lawyers and the erosion of the agency's independence from the White House. That one of them was fired on the same day a conservative internet personality called for his removal adds to questions about how outside influences may be helping to shape government personnel decisions.
“The integrity of our legal system and the independence of DOJ requires that laws are enforced impartially, which cannot happen when the White House fires career prosecutors to advance a political agenda,” said Stacey Young, a former Justice Department lawyer and founder of Justice Connection, a network of department alumni that works to support employees.
The Trump loyalists installed to lead the Justice Department have fired employees who worked on the prosecutions against the president and demoted a slew of career supervisors in an effort to purge the agency of officials seen as insufficiently loyal. The latest firings of the U.S. attorney's office employees, however, were carried out not by Justice Department leadership, but by the White House itself.
A Justice Department spokesperson declined to comment Monday. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement that the White House “in coordination with” the Justice Department has dismissed more than 50 U.S. attorneys and deputies in recent weeks.
“The American people deserve a judicial branch full of honest arbiters of the law who want to protect democracy, not subvert it,” Leavitt said. The Justice Department is an executive branch agency.
Justice Department political appointees typically turn over with a new administration, but rank-and-file career prosecutors remain with the department across presidential administrations and have civil service protections designed to shield them from termination for political reasons. The breadth of terminations this year far outpaces the turnover typically seen inside the Justice Department.
Adam Schleifer, who was part of the corporate & securities fraud strike force at the U.S. attorney's office in Los Angeles, received an email Friday morning saying he was being terminated “on behalf of President Donald J. Trump," according to the person familiar with the matter. The email came exactly an hour after right-wing activist Laura Loomer called for him to be fired in a social media post that highlighted Schleifer's past critical comments about Trump while Schleifer was running in a Democratic primary for a congressional seat in New York.
Loomer described Schleifer as a “Trump hater” and Biden administration "holdover." Schleifer, however, re-joined the U.S. attorney's office in California at the end of the first Trump administration after losing the primary to Mondaire Jones. At the time of his firing on Friday, Schleifer was prosecuting a fraud case against Andrew Wiederhorn, the former CEO of Fat Brands Inc., who donated during the presidential campaign to groups supporting Trump.
The email to Schleifer came from the White House Presidential Personnel Office, which recruits, screens and manages political appointees and has no role in the hiring or firing of career civil servants.
Meanwhile, Reagan Fondren, a longtime career prosecutor in Tennessee, was fired Thursday in a one-line email from the White House, she told The Daily Memphian. Fondren became acting U.S. attorney in the Western District of Tennessee in September after the Biden appointee stepped down. Fondren did not respond to a request for comment.
While it was expected that her position as acting U.S. attorney would be temporary, acting U.S. attorneys usually return to their old jobs when a new politically appointed leader has been chosen. She was not just removed as acting leader of the office but fired from the Justice Department entirely, the newspaper reported.
Shortly after the Trump administration took over in January, the Justice Department fired more than a dozen employees who worked on the criminal cases against Trump, which the department abandoned in light of his electoral victory. Days later, then-acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove ordered the firings of a group of prosecutors who were involved in the cases against the more than 1,500 people charged in the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol riot.
Leavitt is one of three administration officials who face a lawsuit from The Associated Press on First- and Fifth-amendment grounds. The AP says the three are punishing the news agency for editorial decisions they oppose. The White House says the AP is not following an executive order to refer to the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America.
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Associated Press writer Eric Tucker in Washington contributed to this report.
