White House Takes Highly Unusual Step of Directly Firing Line Prosecutors

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Source: New York Times

White House Takes Highly Unusual Step of Directly Firing Line Prosecutors

Two prosecutors were dismissed out of the blue, notified by a terse one-sentence email stating no reason for the move other than that it was on behalf of the president himself.


The Department of Justice building in Washington this month. The ousters reflected a more aggressive effort by the White House to reach deep inside U.S. attorney offices across the country. Eric Lee/The New York Times

By Devlin Barrett and Maggie Haberman
Devlin Barrett reported from Washington, and Maggie Haberman from New York.
March 30, 2025
Updated 5:31 p.m. ET

Two longtime career prosecutors have been suddenly fired by the White House, in what current and former Justice Department officials called an unusual and alarming exercise of presidential power.

In recent days, the prosecutors, in Los Angeles and Memphis, were dismissed abruptly, notified by a terse one-sentence email stating no reason for the move other than that it was on behalf of the president himself.

The ousters reflected a more aggressive effort by the White House to reach deep inside U.S. attorney offices across the country in a stark departure from decades of practice. While it is commonplace and accepted for senior political appointees at the Justice Department to change from administration to administration, no department veteran could recall any similar removal of assistant U.S. attorneys.

A Justice Department spokesman declined to comment. ... Asked about the ousters and whether others had been let go in a similar fashion, Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, said, "The White House, in coordination with the Department of Justice, has dismissed more than 50 U.S. attorneys and deputies in the past few weeks." ... She added, "The American people deserve a judicial branch full of honest arbiters of the law who want to protect democracy, not subvert it," offering no explanation for how either of the two fired prosecutors might have done that. Prosecutors are part of the executive, not judicial, branch of government.

{snip}

Devlin Barrett covers the Justice Department and the F.B.I. for The Times. More about Devlin Barrett

Maggie Haberman is a White House correspondent, reporting on the second, nonconsecutive term of Donald J. Trump. More about Maggie Haberman

A version of this article appears in print on March 31, 2025, Section A, Page 16 of the New York edition with the headline: In Unusual Move, White House Directly Fires Prosecutors in Memphis and L.A.. Order Reprints Today's Paper Subscribe

Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/30/us/line-prosecutors-fired-trump-doj.html

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Hat tip, Ken White

White House ordered firing of L.A. federal prosecutor on ex-Fatburger CEO case, sources say

https://www.democraticunderground.com/11685126

[bucolic_frolic]

1. But he can't fire Pentagon leakers because he doesn't know who they are! /nt

[yellow dahlia]

2. We need to stand up for the rule of law.

[lastlib]

3. "The White House, in coordination with the Department of Justice...."

Therein lies the problem!

- - - - - - - - - - - -

[krkaufman]

4. Wholly broken

It's getting to the point where anyone who wasn't fired would likely need to be come a change of administration, presuming that hopeful future.

[William Seger]

5. Even before reading the rest of the article, I guessed it was a favor to a wealthy donor

Trump ought to just publish a price list.