White House abruptly fires career Justice Department prosecutors in
latest norm-shattering move
[April 01, 2025]
By ALANNA DURKIN RICHER
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.
[to top of second column]
|
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.
___
Associated Press writer Eric Tucker in Washington contributed to this
report.
All contents © copyright 2025 Associated Press. All rights reserved |
