After President Trump fired the acting U.S. attorney in Sacramento, his California nemesis, Gov. Gavin Newsom, took notice.
First, Mr. Newsom stuck up for the ousted prosecutor, Michele Beckwith, on X. “WAKE UP, AMERICA,” the governor’s press office posted. “DEMOCRACY IS ON THE BRINK!” The post was accompanied by photos of Ms. Beckwith and Mr. Trump, his face half-hidden in shadows.
Now, Mr. Newsom has hired Ms. Beckwith as a deputy legal affairs secretary. In government-speak, that means she is an attorney providing legal counsel to the governor and state agencies.
“Michele brings to our office more than 20 years of legal experience and invaluable knowledge of the law,” said Tara Gallegos, a spokeswoman for Mr. Newsom. “Trump’s loss is California’s gain.”
The White House referred a request for comment on Ms. Beckwith’s new role to the Department of Justice, which declined to comment on the matter.
The New York Times first reported last month that Ms. Beckwith had been quietly fired less than six hours after emailing Gregory Bovino, the Border Patrol chief based in Southern California, that he would have to abide by court orders and the Constitution while conducting a planned operation in her district.
She sent the email to Mr. Bovino on July 15 after he had notified her that he was headed to Sacramento for an immigration operation. She said she wanted to ensure he knew about court orders in her district requiring that Border Patrol agents could only detain people if they had a reasonable suspicion that those people were violating federal immigration law.
That afternoon, Ms. Beckwith received an email from the White House stating that her employment with the Department of Justice was terminated “on behalf of President Donald J. Trump.” Her phone and computer went dark, and she was marched out of the office.
Two days later, Mr. Bovino and his agents raided a Home Depot parking lot in Sacramento. He posted a video on X in which he said: “Folks, there is no such thing as a sanctuary city. There is no such thing as a sanctuary state.”
Mr. Bovino said in an emailed statement last month to The New York Times, “The former Acting US Attorney’s email suggesting that the United States Border Patrol does not ALWAYS abide by the Constitution revealed a bias against law enforcement.”
Mr. Bovino’s tactics have come under scrutiny in Chicago, where a federal judge admonished him on Tuesday after the agency apparently violated her orders restricting the use of force and tear gas.
Ms. Beckwith’s firing was an early example of the president’s ousting of top federal prosecutors who did not carry out his agenda. After firing her, he fired a U.S. attorney in Virginia who had determined there was not enough evidence to indict James B. Comey, the former F.B.I. director, and Letitia James, the New York State attorney general, both of whom are political targets of the president. The replacement U.S. attorney later indicted both of them.
There are 93 U.S. attorneys who oversee federal prosecutions in districts around the country. Ms. Beckwith, a career prosecutor, had been working as the No. 2 attorney in the office when her boss, who had been appointed by the Biden administration, resigned shortly before Mr. Trump was inaugurated. She then kept doing her old job while filling in as acting U.S. attorney.
Mr. Trump not only removed her as acting U.S. attorney but also ended her career as a federal prosecutor, a move experts said was unusual.
Ms. Beckwith, who started her new job last week, said in an interview that she was still getting acclimated and was looking forward to “a very interesting year.”
“To me, it’s not political — it’s existential for our country,” she said. “So if there’s something I can do to assist in keeping our democracy and Constitution alive, that is what I am happy to do.”
Heather Knight is a reporter in San Francisco, leading The Times’s coverage of the Bay Area and Northern California.
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