The Trump administration on Friday forced out a handful of senior Justice Department officials, further thinning the ranks of career officials who help guide the agency, according to several people familiar with the actions.
The ouster of lawyers managing the Justice Department’s pardon work, bankruptcy litigation and other legal issues marks the latest move by the new administration to remove or reassign senior officials with many years of experience. The official overseeing the Office of Professional Responsibility, which handles internal ethics investigations, was also removed from that role, though he was placed on administrative leave, these people said.
The removals follow a pattern that has fueled turmoil and alarm inside the Justice Department as the new administration seeks to take control of the agency and reshape it with an emphasis on loyalty to President Trump.
The Justice Department’s pardon attorney, Elizabeth Oyer, posted on LinkedIn that she had been fired from “the job I have poured my heart and soul into for the last three years.” In the post, she shared her dismissal letter, which was signed by the newly confirmed deputy attorney general, Todd Blanche, a former criminal defense lawyer for Mr. Trump.
Two Justice Department spokesmen did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Attorney General Pam Bondi has vowed to end what she calls the “weaponization” of the department, claiming without much explanation or evidence that prosecutors improperly pursued criminal cases against Mr. Trump during the Biden administration.
Critics of the Trump administration’s recent personnel changes inside the Justice Department argue that they will significantly weaken the authority of career law enforcement officials, and instead empower pro-Trump partisans to pursue the president’s goal of punishing his perceived enemies.
Sidelining the head of the Office of Professional Responsibility was particularly alarming to a number of current and former officials because there are a host of legal ethics challenges being raised about senior department officials, including Emil Bove, a former defense lawyer for Mr. Trump who now works for Mr. Blanche.
In just a matter of weeks, the traditionally nonpartisan department has already courted accusations of politicization in its handling of cases under Mr. Trump.
Mr. Bove set off a firestorm when he ordered prosecutors to drop a criminal case against Mayor Eric Adams of New York, saying the case against the mayor was interfering with his ability to assist with Mr. Trump’s immigration crackdown. At least eight prosecutors and supervisors resigned over that dispute. The department also put two Manhattan prosecutors who had worked on that case on administrative leave on Friday, according to people with knowledge of the matter.
And Senate Democrats have called for an investigation of Ed Martin, the interim U.S. attorney in Washington, saying that he has “abused” his prosecutorial power by threatening political opponents. Mr. Trump has nominated Mr. Martin to run the office on a permanent basis.
One of the senior lawyers dismissed Friday was surprised to find officials in their office who had been sent to tell them they had been dismissed, the people familiar with the events said.
The department has already fired more than a dozen prosecutors who worked on cases involving the Jan. 6, 2021, riot by Trump supporters at the Capitol, and forced out senior F.B.I. executives.
