Trump’s DOJ firings are designed to deter future investigations, former officials say


The dismissal of lawyers of the Department of Multiple career involved in the prosecution of Donald Trump on Monday was designed to intimidate the Department of Justice and the FBI workforce and deter the investigations of the second Trump administration, NBC News told him A NBC News.

“They are scaring people to behave in a certain way,” said a former high -ranking official of the FBI, who asked not to be appointed, citing reprisal fears.

“Imagine if someone in the new administration legitimately abuses their position,” he added. “Does anyone in the DOJ or the FBI really investigate that now?”

Stephen Gillers, an expert in legal ethics and former law professor at the University of New York, said Trump seems to be trying to achieve two objectives: punishing his perceived enemies and determining future criminal probes.

“The reason is the remuneration,” Gillers said. “At the same time, it also warns others that they will suffer the same destination if they cross it. So, a second reason is deterrence. What we have then is revenge and behavior modification. ”

A spokesman for the Department of Justice, now led by an interim deputy attorney general appointed by Trump, declined to comment.

Among the dismissed on Monday were multiple career prosecutors who worked on the team of the special lawyer Jack Smith, who accused Trump of mismanagement of classified documents and interfered in the 2020 elections. They include Molly Gaston, JP Cooney, Anne McNamara and Mary Dohrmann, said an official familiar with the matter.

Throughout the 2024 campaign, Trump repeatedly promised to renew the Department of Justice and the FBI, accusing both of pursuing “witchcag” motivated against him. Smith and former Attorney General Merrick Garland repeatedly said that Trump’s own actions, not political bias, resulted in criminal prosecutions.

Trump’s electoral victory suggested that voters still support him and his votes to shake Washington. “The justice scales will be rebuilt,” Trump said in his inaugural speech last week. “The vicious, violent and unfair weapon of the Department of Justice and our government will end.”

A former official of the career justice department who worked during Trump’s first mandate and asked not to be appointed, citing fears of compensation, said the layoffs were driven by revenge but were also strategic.

“He fired them from anger and resentment,” said the former official of the Department of Justice. “He is trying to intimidate other officials in an effort to make him undergo personally instead of his work and the Constitution.”

A second former official of the Department of Justice predicted that the remuneration acts would continue if Kash Patel, Trump’s candidate, is confirmed as FBI director.

Patel, whose confirmation hearing is Thursday, has blamed career public officials for being part of a “deep state” plot to undermine Trump’s presidency. Patel published a list of 50 people in a 2023 memory that, according to him, were members of the “Executive Deep State.”

The second former official of the Department of Justice said: “The shots are designed not only to punish these career officials who were simply doing their job, but to send a chilling and sinister message to other employees of their career so that you do not better They interpose on the path of people like Kash Patel, who has promised to point to Trump’s political opponents. “

The documents seized during the search for the FBI on the Mar-A-Lago farm of former President Donald Trump in August 2022, partially written by the source.Department of Justice through the AP file

Multiple reasigments

Last week, the officials of the Department of Justice reassigned four senior career prosecutors also involved in Trump’s investigations to repression in the Sanctuary cities. The former officials warned that the loss of prosecutors with decades of experience will slow down federal investigations against terrorism, criminal and cybernetic and potentially and potential investigations will put the public at risk.

Reassigned prosecutors were transferred to a new task force of the Department of Justice created last week that will investigate state or local officials who resist or do not comply with federal immigration application efforts.

A third former justice department said that the degradations of senior career prosecutors would weaken the department and FBI.

“Only a fool might think that introducing agitation in, and eliminating the experience of, our national security mission is a good idea,” said the third former official, who also requested anonymity due to concerns about compensation.

George Toscas, a high-level official of the National Security Division of the Department of Justice who was involved in the search for the FBI of Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s property in Florida, in 2022, was reassigned to the task force From the city of Sanctuary last week, NBC News reported last week.

So was Eun Young Choi, a career prosecutor in the National Security Division, who helped condemn Ross Ulbricht, a cryptocurrency support that helped found Silk Road, a black market in the dark network that sold illegal drugs, he reported The Washington Post.

During the 2024 campaign, Trump promised to forgive Ulbricht, a popular hero in libertarian and cryptographic communities, if they supported him. On his first full day in office, Trump forgave Ulbricht and denounced federal prosecutors who condemned him.

“The slag that worked to condemn him were some of the same crazy people who were involved in the Government’s modern weapon against me,” Trump wrote.

The second former official of the Department of Justice said that the reallocation of professional prosecutors put the public at risk.

“The senior officials of the Department of Justice of the career that have been attacked are in charge of investigating the most sensitive and complex national security threats that face the country, from active terrorist plots to Chinese cyber attacks,” said the former official. “They are extraordinary public servants who have dedicated their professional life to national security. There is simply no way to replace their decades of experience and leadership. “

However, multiple Republicans in Congress have said that the Department of Justice and the FBI need radical reform. Senator Bill Hagerty, R-Ten.

“There are serious FBI problems,” Hagerty added. “The American public knows it.”

Timothy Naftali, Senior Research Scholar of the Columbia School of International and Public Affairs and former director of the Nixon Presidential Library, said Trump’s victory in November is a sign of the support that the voters still enjoy.

Naftali said Trump and President Richard Nixon are similar, since both tend to see the world in terms of allies or enemies. However, he said that Trump has been much more successful than Nixon to convince Americans that all research in their behavior have been inappropriate.

Until that public perception fades, said Naphtali, Trump is likely to continue to retaliate openly.

“He managed to convince people that the exercise of research powers against Donald J. Trump is always illegitimate,” said Naphtali. “That’s incredible. That gives him freedom. That is the era in which we live. “



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