Special counsel prosecutors were fired on instructions of White House

The justice department fired more than a dozen federal prosecutors involved in the two criminal prosecutions against Donald Trump after receiving instructions to do so from the White House, indicating the late-night purge was a political directive that deputized the justice department.

The termination of the career prosecutors were ostensibly at the direction of the acting attorney general, James McHenry, according to the notices sent to anyone remaining on the trial team of 18 who had worked for former special counsel Jack Smith.

But in a remark during her first briefing on Tuesday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, when asked whether the president had authorized the firings, said the firings were tied to a memo issued by the White House personnel office.

“This was a memo that went out by the presidential personnel office and the president is the leader of this White House, so yes,” Leavitt said in response.

The White House’s involvement in the firings undercut the pretense of the justice department acting independently over its own affairs, and deepened fears that the move was a precursor to the department ultimately becoming an extension of the West Wing.

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, Smith had 17 prosecutors attached to his team.

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.

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 who in theory had civil service protections for their jobs.

In the termination notices transmitted to the prosecutors who had 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 came as another major personnel change 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 in preparation to use it to enforce Trump’s personal and political agenda.