Firing the prosecutors who investigated him: at least twelve terminations, no individualized cause

At least a dozen career DOJ officials who worked on Jack Smith's investigations were terminated; a civil-service employment-law expert said the firings likely violated due-process protections normally required before removing career employees

On January 27, 2025, one week into the term, Acting Attorney General James McHenry fired at least a dozen career DOJ officials who had worked on special counsel Jack Smith's investigations into Trump's handling of classified documents and his efforts to overturn the 2020 election. Termination letters stated: '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,' citing their case assignments themselves, not any individualized allegation of misconduct.

Named among those fired were career trial attorneys Molly Gaston, J.P. Cooney, Mary Dohrmann, and Anne McNamara; separately, senior career official Bradley Weinsheimer was reassigned out of his role in the same period. Jack Smith himself had resigned days before Trump's inauguration, writing in his resignation letter that his office had 'one north star: to follow the facts and law wherever they led' and that 'seeking to influence the election one way or the other... played no role in our work', a direct, on-the-record denial of the politicization the terminations implicitly alleged.

Former US Attorney and NBC legal contributor Joyce Vance called the firings 'anti-rule of law, anti-democracy'; federal employment-law expert Julie Zebrak noted career civil servants have due-process and appeal rights to the Merit Systems Protection Board and cannot be summarily fired without progressive discipline, meaning the terminations, as executed, bypassed established civil-service protections regardless of their ultimate legal outcome.

Documented

Contested; fired officials retained civil-service appeal rights to the Merit Systems Protection Board; no ruling identified as of the write-up date

2025-01-27