The Dictatorship
DOJ fires prosecutors who worked on Jan. 6 cases as Trump’s purge continues
The White House has fired multiple top FBI officials and federal prosecutors who worked on Jan. 6 cases, according to reports on Friday, as President Donald Trump continues to dramatically upend the federal government to align with his agenda.
Citing Trump’s sweeping pardon for Jan. 6 defendants, a letter firing multiple federal prosecutors stated that their role in the Jan. 6 prosecutions was the reason for their dismissal, NBC News reported. One of the fired prosecutors, a former assistant U.S. attorney who handled some of the Jan. 6 criminal cases, told Politico that 25 to 30 of his colleagues were fired and others were moved to different offices.
At the FBI, all six of the bureau’s top executives and multiple field office leaders have been dismissed, according to current and former FBI officials who spoke to NBC News. Acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove — who represented Trump in several of his criminal cases — has asked for a list of FBI employees who worked on Jan. 6 cases for “a review process to determine whether any additional personnel actions are necessary,” acting FBI Director Brian J. Driscoll Jr. told employees in a memo Friday.
When asked about the dismissals, Trump said he had not heard about them but added that it was “a good thing” that some FBI agents were fired “because they were very bad.”
“They were very corrupt people, very corrupt, and they hurt our country very badly with the weaponization,” he said.
The abrupt firings continue a streak of radical personnel changes in the federal government that have alarmed career civil servants and legal experts. On Monday, the Justice Department fired several officials who worked on the criminal investigations into Trump’s alleged mishandling of classified documents and his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results.
Also last week, the administration dismissed more than a dozen inspectors general across several federal agenciesa move that a senior White House official characterized to NBC News as “cleaning house of what doesn’t work for us and going forward.” The chairman of the Council of Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency, Hannibal “Mike” Ware, said in a letter to the White House that the group does “not believe the actions taken are legally sufficient.”
Clarissa-Jan Lim is a breaking/trending news blogger for BLN Digital. She was previously a senior reporter and editor at BuzzFeed News.