Acting Attorney General James McHenry terminated the employment of more than a dozen prosecutors who worked on former special counsel Jack Smith‘s team on Monday, gutting the office that led two historic criminal prosecutions of President Donald Trump.
A Justice Department spokesman confirmed the firings to the Washington Examiner but did not disclose the names of those who were let go. McHenry deemed them untrustworthy, the spokesman said.
“Given your significant role in prosecuting the President, I do not believe that the leadership of the Department can trust you to assist in implementing the President’s agenda faithfully,” McHenry wrote to the lawyers.
Smith, who resigned as special counsel before Trump took office, brought criminal charges against Trump in Florida and in Washington, D.C., related to Trump’s handling of classified documents and his allegedly illegal attempts to overturn the 2020 election, respectively.
Smith and his team spent more than two years investigating and prosecuting Trump, but they were forced to terminate both cases after Trump’s election win because of a Justice Department policy that prohibits prosecuting sitting presidents.
Smith’s team included veteran career lawyers of the department, such as J.P. Cooney and Jay Bratt. Cooney was among those terminated, as were Molly Gaston, Anne McNamara, and Mary Dohrmann, NBC News reported. Bratt retired before Trump took office.
Some legal experts called into question the legality of the firings, noting that they believed McHenry should have given more notice to prosecutors who worked as career officials rather than political appointees.
“My firm is willing to represent pro bono those fired in this unlawful and vindictive purge. These dedicated civil servants were performing their jobs and upholding the rule of law,” national security lawyer Mark Zaid wrote on social media.
Their terminations come as part of dramatic adjustments at the Justice Department in the first week of the new administration and could represent the start of Trump’s retribution tour against those who took the president to court.
In addition to the firings, Associate Deputy Attorney General Bradley Weinsheimer, who has worked at the department for three decades, was transferred out of his role, the New York Times reported Monday.
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The head of the department’s Public Integrity Section, Corey Amundson, resigned after working more than two decades at the Justice Department. He had been reassigned to focus on the Justice Department’s immigration enforcement initiatives prior to quitting.
Interim U.S. Attorney Ed Martin of Washington launched an internal inquiry into his predecessor Matthew Graves’s wide-ranging four-year prosecution of Jan. 6 defendants, according to CNN. Martin called it a “special project” while a senior administration official countered that it was a “huge waste of resources.” The Justice Department spokesman did not respond to questions about Martin’s new inquiry.
