The Justice Department’s campaign of retribution against officials who investigated President Trump and his supporters accelerated late Friday with the firing of more than a dozen federal prosecutors at the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington, according to a department memo.
Emil Bove, the acting No. 2 official at the department, offered no evidence those targeted had done anything improper, illegal or unethical. Instead he cited a legal technicality and Mr. Trump’s claim that anybody involved in his two indictments were complicit in “a grave national injustice.”
Those informed of their dismissals had been hired to investigate the Jan. 6 riot as the office struggled to manage what became the largest prosecution in the department’s history.
The move came on a day when the F.B.I. indicated it would scrutinize thousands of rank-and-file agents involved in Trump and Jan. 6 investigations. It amounted to a powerful indication that Mr. Trump has few qualms deploying the colossal might of federal law enforcement to punish perceived political enemies, even as his cabinet nominees offered sober assurances they would abide by rule of law.
Mr. Bove, who has overseen an opening volley of threats, firings and forced transfers since the inauguration, accused the Biden administration of illegally hiring prosecutors in recent months to permanent posts after being assigned to the two Trump investigations through the department’s probationary hiring program.
The hirings, he wrote, “improperly hindered” acting U.S. attorney Ed Martin from fulfilling his “obligation to faithfully implement the agenda that the American people elected President Trump to execute.”
Mr. Bove, said he would not “tolerate subversive personnel actions” and suggested the now-empty slots would be used to make “merit-based” hires.
Mr. Martin, an ultraconservative activist who supported the far-reaching clemency for the rioters convicted of storming the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, has himself issued a series of threatening memos and emails instructing career prosecutors to follow his directives or quit.
In his memo, Mr. Bove directed supervisors to “preserve all records, including documents, emails, text messages, and other electronic communications” — leaving open the possibility that they could face disciplinary action over the decision to retain and hire them.
The memo capped a week of chaos, menace and bombast seldom seem at the department, which Mr. Trump has repeatedly described as the center of a “deep state” conspiracy in the federal bureaucracy to destroy him.
On Monday, the acting attorney general James McHenry fired more than a dozen prosecutors who worked on for the special counsel who prosecuted Mr. Trump. Jack Smith, saying they could not be trusted to “faithfully implement” the president’s agenda, a Justice Department spokesman said.
Justice Department veterans called the firings an egregious violation of well-established laws meant to preserve the integrity and professionalism of government agencies.
What made it all the more jarring, current and former officials said, was that such a momentous and aggressive step had been initiated by an acting attorney general, operating on behalf of a president with a stated desire for vengeance, and few advisers with the stature or inclination to restrain him.
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