Washington (AP) – The recent layoffs of lawyers from the Department of Career Justice by the White House are a sign of the tightening grip of President Donald Trump on the law enforcement agency known for his Long tradition of political independence.
On Friday, an American deputy prosecutor in Los Angeles was dismissed without explanation in a laconic email from the Office of the Personnel of the White House shortly after a right -wing activist published on social networks, according to a person familiar with the issue. The person spoke under the cover of anonymity because he was concerned about potential remuneration.
This followed the layouts of the White House last week of a longtime prosecutor who had been an American lawyer in Memphis, in Tennessee.
The layoffs have marked an escalation of the measures which collapsed which involved the Ministry of Justice in the troubles and were alarmed on a contempt for public service protections for career lawyers and the erosion of independence of the White House. The fact that one of them was dismissed on the same day as a conservative internet personality called for withdrawal adds to questions about how external influences can help shape the decisions of government staff.
“The integrity of our legal system and the independence of the DoJ require that the laws be applied impartially, which cannot occur when the White House dismisses career prosecutors to advance a political program,” said Stacey Young, a former lawyer for the Ministry of Justice and founder of justice Connection, a network of former students of the department who works to support employees.
Trump loyalists installed to lead the Ministry of Justice dismissed employees who worked prosecution against the president And demoted a series of career supervisors in order to purge the agency of officials considered insufficiently faithful. The latest layoffs of employees of the American prosecutor’s office, however, were not carried out by the Directorate of the Ministry of Justice, but by the White House itself.
A spokesman for the Ministry of Justice refused to comment on Monday. The White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement that the White House “in coordination with”, the Ministry of Justice had rejected more than 50 American lawyers and deputies in recent weeks.
“The American people deserves a judicial branch full of honest arbitrators of the law who want to protect democracy, not overthrowing it,” said Leavitt. The Ministry of Justice is an executive branch agency.
The appointments of the Ministry of Justice generally turn with a new administration, but basic career prosecutors remain with the department through presidential administrations and have public service protections designed to protect them from termination for political reasons. The extent of dismissals this year far exceeds the turnover generally seen within the Ministry of Justice.
Adam Schleifer, who was part of the force of companies and securities at the office of the American prosecutor in Los Angeles, received an email on Friday morning saying that he was dismissed “on behalf of President Donald J. Trump”, according to the person familiar with the case. The email came exactly an hour after the right-wing activist Laura Loomer called to be dismissed in an article on social networks which highlighted Schleifer’s past critical comments on Trump while Schleifer presented himself in a Democratic primary for a siege of the Congress in New York.
Loomer described Schleifer as a “hater of Trump” and an administration of Biden “Holdver”. Schleifer, however, joined the American lawyer’s office in California at the end of the first Trump administration after losing the primary Mondary Jones. On Friday, at the time of his dismissal, Schleifer continued a fraud case against Andrew Wiederhorn, the former CEO of Fat Brands Inc., who donated to the presidential campaign to groups supporting Trump.
The email in Schleifer came from the White House presidential staff office, which recruits, exceeds and manages the appointments and has no role in hiring or dismissal of career officials.
Meanwhile, Reagan Foundren, a longtime prosecutor in Tennessee, was dismissed Thursday in an email of a white house line, She said to Daily Memphian. Fondent became an American lawyer in the western district of Tennessee in September after the person named Biden resigned. Founden did not respond to a request for comments.
Although we expected that his post as an American lawyer is temporary, actuating lawyers generally return to their old jobs when a new politically appointed chief was chosen. It was not only withdrawn as the acting office chief, but completely fired from the Ministry of Justice, the newspaper reported.
Shortly after the Trump administration took over in January, the Ministry of Justice dismissed more than a dozen employees who worked on Criminal affairs against Trumpthat the department has abandoned in the light of its electoral victory. A few days later, the general vice-prosecutor, Emil Bove, ordered the dismissals of a group of prosecutors involved in business against more than 1,500 people accused on January 6, 2021, US Capitol Riot.
Leavitt is one of the three managers of the administration who are faced with a trial of the Associated Press for first and fifth amendments. The AD says that the three punish the news agency for the editorial decisions to which they oppose. The White House says that the AP does not follow an executive decree to designate the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America.
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The writer Associated Press, Eric Tucker in Washington, contributed to this report.
