The acting attorney general, James McHenry, on Monday fired more than a dozen federal prosecutors who worked on the two criminal cases against Donald Trump, saying they could not be trusted to implement the president’s agenda for the justice department, two people familiar with the matter said.
The precise extent of the firings were unclear because the department did not disclose names. At the time the cases were dismissed last year, after Trump won the election, special counsel Jack Smith had 17 prosecutors attached to his team.
The purge was not unexpected given Trump had vowed, on the campaign trail, to fire Smith, but the abrupt firings were jarring as the acting attorney general took aim at career prosecutors who had served at the department for years through changes in administrations and had gone back to their old jobs.
Smith charged Trump in two criminal cases: in Florida, for mishandling classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago club and defying a subpoena commanding their return; and in Washington, for attempting to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
In the termination notices transmitted to the prosecutors who worked on Smith’s team, McHenry wrote that they were being let go as a result of their “significant role in prosecuting President Trump” which meant they could not be trusted to “assist in faithfully implementing the president’s agenda”.
The termination of Smith’s team comes as major personnel changes shook the deputy attorney general’s office, where the top career official, Brad Weinsheimer, was informed he could either be reassigned to a less powerful post or resign, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Weinsheimer, a highly respected veteran of the justice department, was appointed to his current role on an interim basis by Trump’s first attorney general, Jeff Sessions, which was made permanent by Trump’s final attorney general, Bill Barr.
But Trump has since soured on Sessions and Barr, and their endorsements appear to have been of no help to Weinsheimer as the new Trump administration moves to clear the senior leadership of the justice department as they prepare to use it to enforce Trump’s personal and political agenda.
The White House and a justice department spokesperson could not immediately be reached for comment on the personnel moves, which were earlier reported by Fox News.
Shortly after Trump announced his presidential bid in November 2022, the attorney general, Merrick Garland, appointed Smith to serve as a special counsel overseeing the investigation of Trump. Smith resigned before Trump took office.
In a report released this month, Smith concluded that the president engaged in an “unprecedented criminal effort” to hold on to power after losing the 2020 election, but was thwarted in bringing the case to trial by Trump’s November election victory. Smith also investigated Trump’s retention of classified documents after he left the White House, filing a second federal lawsuit in Florida.
Trump’s lawyers have called Smith’s report politically motivated. The president denies any wrongdoing in the cases, both of which Smith dropped shortly after Trump’s election win, citing
The two special counsel investigations resulted in indictments, but Smith dropped the cases against Trump after the election, citing a longstanding justice department policy that prohibits the prosecution of a sitting president.
In a separate development, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday that a Trump-appointed prosecutor had opened an internal review of the justice department’s decision to charge hundreds of January 6 defendants with felony obstruction offenses in connection with the 2021 attack on the US Capitol.