DOJ Fires Officials Who Worked on Trump Investigations

The Justice Department said Monday that it had fired more than a dozen employees who worked on criminal investigations into President Trump. "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," acting Attorney General James McHenry wrote to the prosecutors in a letter obtained by CNN.

• The abrupt action targeting career prosecutors who worked on special counsel Jack Smith's team is the latest sign of upheaval inside the Justice Department and reflects the administration's determination to purge the government of workers it perceives as disloyal to the president, the AP reports.

• The move, which follows the reassignment of multiple senior career officials across divisions, was made even though rank-and-file prosecutors by tradition remain in their positions across presidential administrations and are not punished because of their involvement in sensitive investigations.
• "This action is consistent with the mission of ending the weaponization of government," a McHenry spokesman said, per the Washington Post. It was not immediately clear which prosecutors were affected by the order. Smith himself resigned from the department earlier this month. Trump had vowed to fire him on his first day in office.

(More Justice Department stories.)