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insurrection
Trump DOJ Fires Jan. 6 Prosecutors, Top FBI Agents While Threatening Larger Purge
"Trump's outrageous attack on the DOJ and FBI is a clear and present danger to public safety, and a wrecking ball swinging at the rule of law," Rep. Jamie Raskin said.
Feb 01, 2025
The Trump Department of Justice made moves on Friday to fire FBI employees and prosecutors who were involved with the government's cases against U.S. President Donald Trump and the participants in the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
First, on Thursday, several senior FBI officials—stationed both at headquarters and in the field—were told to either resign or be fired. Then, at 5 pm Eastern Time on Friday, dozens of DOJ prosecutors who worked on January 6 cases received an email saying they had been fired. Also on Friday, an email sent to FBI employees told them that acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove, who previously represented Trump in the cases against him, had requested a list of everyone who had worked on January 6 cases "to determine whether any additional personnel actions are necessary."
"Firing the FBI agents who investigated violent attacks against police officers on January 6 would set a dangerous precedent and make all of us less safe," Stand Up America executive director Christina Harvey said in a statement. "This is a shameless act of political retribution that weakens federal law enforcement and the rule of law."
"This is a massacre meant to chill our efforts to fight crime without fear or favor."
The FBI higher-ups forced out included the agency's six most senior executives as well as more than 20 directors of field offices including Washington, D.C., Miami, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, New Orleans, Seattle, and Las Vegas. The targeted officials had been promoted by former FBI Director Christopher Wray, according toThe New York Times. The Washington, D.C. field office worked extensively on Special Counsel Jack Smith's investigations into Trump's mishandling of classified documents and involvement in the January 6 insurrection, as well as the investigations of the rioters themselves, NBC News reported. One source toldThe Hill that agents who had worked on the cases were physically escorted out of the D.C. field office on Friday.
NBC reported that several of the senior officials had chosen to retire, even though they could have challenged their dismissals as nonpolitical appointees subject to civil service regulations.
Many of the agents received the ultimatum the same day that U.S. President Donald Trump's nominee to head the FBI, Kash Patel, promised in his Senate confirmation hearing that he would not retaliate against any agents who worked on the Trump cases and was not aware of any attempts to do so.
"All FBI employees will be protected against political retribution," Patel told the Senate.
Trump, meanwhile, said on Friday that he was not aware of the firings, but added, "If they fired some people over there, that's a good thing, because they were very bad. They were very corrupt people, very corrupt, and they hurt our country very badly with the weaponization."
Another memo sent by Bove to acting FBI Director Brian J. Driscoll Jr. laid the groundwork for more firings, as Driscoll was asked to submit a list of all agents and employees "assigned at any time to investigations and/or prosecutions" related to January 6, as The New York Times reported. Field offices received a similar request from the FBI's counterterrorism division. Bove also asked for a list of agents who worked on a case against Hamas leadership, though it is not clear why.
One employee toldCNN that the January 6 case was the largest case the bureau had ever worked on, observing that "everyone touched that case."
In an email to staff on Friday reported by NBC, Driscoll noted, "We understand that this request encompasses thousands of employees across the country who have supported these investigative efforts," adding, "I am one of those employees."
"This is a massacre meant to chill our efforts to fight crime without fear or favor," another anonymous agent told CNN. "Even for those not fired, it sends the message that the bureau is no longer independent."
The FBI Agents Association, which represents over 14,000 active and former agents, issued a scathing statement on Friday.
"If true, these outrageous actions by acting officials are fundamentally at odds with the law enforcement objectives outlined by President Trump and his support for FBI Agents," the association said. "Dismissing potentially hundreds of agents would severely weaken the bureau's ability to protect the country from national security and criminal threats and will ultimately risk setting up the bureau and its new leadership for failure. These actions also contradict the commitments that Attorney General-nominee Pam Bondi and Director-nominee Kash Patel made during their nomination hearings before the United States Senate."
The group added that Patel had promised association members in a meeting that "agents would be afforded appropriate process and review and not face retribution based solely on the cases to which they were assigned."
Finally on Friday, DOJ prosecutors received an email from Interim U.S. Attorney Ed Martin, telling them they were being fired and including a memo from Bove. The fired prosecutors had been hired to work on the January 6 cases and were made permanent by the Biden administration following the November election. In his memo, Bove suggested the prosecutors had been made permanent in an inappropriate attempt to protect them from being fired.
"I will not tolerate subversive personnel actions by the previous administration at any U.S. Attorney's Office," Bove wrote, as POLITICO reported. "Too much is at stake. In light of the foregoing, the appropriate course is to terminate these employees."
One of the impacted prosecutors told POLITICO that 25 to 30 people were let go.
"This attack on the Justice Department and particularly on the FBI is the beginning of America's first true era of dictatorship."
The latest round of DOJ firings comes days after the Trump administration already fired a dozen lawyers who had helped bring Smith's two cases against Trump. They also come a week after Trump's firing of 12 inspectors general. Trump also pardoned all approximately 1,500 people involved in the January 6 insurrection on his first day in office.
News of the FBI and DOJ firings sparked ire from Democratic lawmakers.
"Trump's outrageous attack on the DOJ and FBI is a clear and present danger to public safety, and a wrecking ball swinging at the rule of law," said Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), ranking member of the House Committee on the Judiciary, in a statement. "Trump wants to send the message to the police and federal officers that the law doesn't apply to Trump and his enablers. It's also part of his campaign to replace nonpartisan career civil servants with political loyalists and incompetent sycophants. Trump's moves have already left the Justice Department and the FBI rudderless and adrift by ousting their career senior ranks. Now, these unprecedented purges of hundreds of prosecutors, staff, and experienced law enforcement agents will undermine the government's power to protect our country against national security, cyber, and criminal threats."
"The loyal friend of autocrats, kleptocrats, oligarchs, and broligarchs, Trump doesn't care about the requirements of democracy, national security, and public safety," Raskin continued. "His agenda is vengeance and retribution. If allowed to proceed, Trump's purge of our federal law enforcement workforce will expose America to authoritarianism and dictatorship."
Sen. Dick Durbin, (D-Ill.), who serves on the Judiciary Committee, called the firings "a major blow to the FBI and Justice Department's integrity and effectiveness."
"This is a brazen assault on the rule of law that also severely undermines our national security and public safety," Durbin continued. "Unelected Trump lackeys are carrying out widespread political retribution against our nation's career law enforcement officials. President Trump would rather have the FBI and DOJ full of blind admirers and loyalists than experienced law enforcement officers."
Rep. Jim Himes (D-Conn.) also decried the firings and cast doubt on the integrity of Bondi and Patel, whom Trump had tapped to lead the DOJ and FBI respectively.
"Pam Bondi and Kash Patel both committed to protecting the Department of Justice and the FBI from politics and weaponization. If these reports are true, it's clear they misled the Senate," Himes said. "As ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, I have repeatedly asked the FBI for more information about these reports and will insist on answers."
Fellow Connecticut Democrat Rep. Rosa DeLauro wrote on social media: "Priority #1 for the Trump administration: Protect the lawless and purge those who uphold the law. The firing of FBI agents and federal prosecutors without cause is an assault on the rule of law and law enforcement. It leaves Americans vulnerable and less safe. We will push back."
As Democrats promised action, Harvey of Stand Up America also called on Republican lawmakers to respond.
"This is not about public safety—it's about revenge and control," Harvey said. "Removing experienced law enforcement professionals and replacing them with political loyalists puts all of our safety at risk. If there are any Republican senators left who care about protecting the rule of law and public safety, they should oppose this dangerous purge and reject Kash Patel's nomination as FBI Director."
Progressive political commenter Thom Hartmann urged U.S. citizens to call their representatives.
"Let's just call these mass firings at Justice and the FBI what they are. Donald Trump is a lawless man who is ripping apart the FBI to turn it into a banana republic-style group of enforcing thugs who will only do his will," Hartmann wrote on his Substack Saturday morning. "They will spare his friends and persecute his enemies. We've seen this over and over during the past century in countries all over the world; it's nothing new. It's just that we never expected to see it here in America."
"[Russian President Vladimir] Putin dreamed for most of his life of destroying America; he now has a friend who is doing it for him. This attack on the Justice Department and particularly on the FBI is the beginning of America's first true era of dictatorship. The only question now is how long and how far Democratic and Republican politicians and career government employees will tolerate this, and, when their resistance comes, whether it will be too late. The phone number for Congress is 202-224-3121."
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A Jury of 12 Upheld the Rule of the Law. Don't Hold Your Breath for the Right-Wing Supreme Court
So many thanks to the dozen anonymous everyday people in New York who courageously did what the nation's highest court likely will not.
Jun 05, 2024
Last Thursday, 12 ordinary citizens unanimously convicted Donald Trump of 34 felonies. As many have commented, in doing so they upheld the rule of law—the fundamental principle that no person is above the law and that even a former president may be convicted for violating it.
Later this month, however, the six right-wing Justices on the U.S. Supreme Court may issue a decision in U.S. v Trump that would significantly undermine the rule of law, finding that presidents are either wholly or partially immune from federal prosecution (although it would not overturn the New York State conviction.)
SCOTUS has already slow walked its decision for so long that even if it decides that Trump is not immune from prosecution for inciting the January 6 insurrection, it will probably be too late to try him before the November 2024 election.
In late 2023, trial court Judge Tanya Chutkin denied Trump’s motion to dismiss the charges on Trump’s claim that he’s immune from prosecution. She set a trial date for March 4, 2024. Last December, Special Prosecutor Jack Smith asked SCOTUS to review that decision without waiting for a D.C. Circuit Appeal Court ruling but SCOTUS refused. On February 6, the D.C. Circuit unanimously rejected Trump’s claim and ruled that the trial could move forward unless SCOTUS intervened.
SCOTUS did intervene on February 28, postponing the trial indefinitely and agreeing to decide whether and, if so, to what extent a former president enjoys presidential immunity from criminal prosecution for conduct alleged to involve official acts during his tenure in office. SCOTUS set oral arguments for nearly two months later on April 24, the very last day of the term to hear oral arguments, virtually ensuring that there would be no decision until late June or early July, effectively giving Trump the delay that he most wanted.
The right-wing Justices hardly asked questions about text or original meaning. Instead, they behaved like they were delegates to a Constitutional convention debating whether or not a President should have some degree of immunity...
The right-wing SCOTUS majority claims to decide cases based on “originalism” or “textualism,” the theory that cases should be decided based on the text of the Constitution as generally understood at the time it was written. But in oral arguments, the right-wing Justices had little to say about text or original meaning. There is no text in the Constitution that mentions or implies presidential immunity from criminal conduct and there’s nothing in the debate about drafting the Constitution that implies that the founders intended to grant king-like immunity to the president. Quite the opposite. The entire purpose and structure of the Constitution is to protect against anyone having power like England's King George III.
So the right-wing Justices hardly asked questions about text or original meaning. Instead, they behaved like they were delegates to a Constitutional convention debating whether or not a President should have some degree of immunity—whether for official or unofficial acts—as a matter of pure policy as if they were writing a new Constitution from scratch.
Justice Samuel Alito (he of the two pro-coup flags over his house) argued “[I]f an incumbent who loses a very close, hotly contested election knows that a real possibility after leaving office is not that the president is going to be able to go off into a peaceful retirement but that the president may be criminally prosecuted by a bitter political opponent, will that not lead us into a cycle that destabilizes the functioning of our country as a democracy?” And where does it say this in the text or original meaning of the Constitution?
Gorsuch claimed that “I’m not concerned about this case so much as future ones.” Kavanaugh agreed stating “…like Justice Gorsuch, I’m not focused on the here and now of this case. I’m very concerned about the future.” This is in complete violation of the text of Article III of the Constitution which limits the power of Federal Courts to reviewing actual “cases and controversies” and bars them from issuing advisory opinions which merely advise on the constitutionality or interpretation of a law.
Apparently the right-wing “Justices” only believe in textualism and originalism when these theories can arguably support their policy views. They’re prepared to toss them out when they don’t back up their political views such as Trump should be immune from prosecution for breaking criminal laws by inciting an insurrection.
It’s possible that SCOTUS will forge a “compromise” opinion that Presidents cannot be prosecuted for “official” acts (like ordering Seal Team 6 to assassinate a political opponent) but only for “unofficial” acts and send the case back to the lower court to determine whether Trump’s insurrectionary acts were “official” or “unofficial.” This will accomplish Trump’s goal of delaying a trial until after the election, if ever.
So many thanks to the 12 anonymous jurors in New York who courageously upheld the rule of law. But be ready for the U.S. Supreme Court to undermine the rule of law and effectively declare that the president of the United States is a king.
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A Fascist Donald Trump and the Lawyer's Dilemma
Trump’s assault on democracy’s essential institutions has always been open and notorious. Examples abound—and they are laced with lies. If you were an attorney committed to defending democracy, could you defend this man?
Jun 04, 2024
“Thus was democracy finally interred…. [I]t was all done quite legally, though accompanied by terror. Parliament turned over its constitutional authority to [the dictator] and thereby committed suicide, though its body lingered on in an embalmed state to the very end…, serving as a sounding board for some of [the dictator’s] thunderous pronunciations, its members hand-picked by the [dictator’s party], for there were no more real elections….” —William L. Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich (1959)
In his book, Shirer then quoted historian Alan Bullock, whose observation decades ago frames the lawyer’s dilemma in representing Donald Trump today:
“‘The street gangs… had seized control of the resources of a great modern State, the gutter had come to power….’ But —as Hitler never ceased to boast—‘legally,’—by an overwhelming vote of Parliament. The Germans had no one to blame but themselves.”
The Constitutional Right to Representation
In the United States, anyone charged with a crime is entitled to a defense. But representing someone seeking to undermine the U.S. Constitution by destroying its institutional foundations and the rule of law is an entirely different matter. That’s because every lawyer swears an oath to support the Constitution.
Trump’s assault on democracy’s essential institutions has always been open and notorious. Examples abound—and they are laced with lies.
The Big Lie(s)
More than 60 federal and state courts ruled that Trump lost the 2020 election. But Trump claims falsely that he won. Yielding no ground to facts or reality, he and his allies claim that—unless he wins—every election is “rigged” against him and no one should credit the outcome, including the upcoming contest on November 5, 2024.
Likewise, a jury of Trump’s peers convicted him of 34 felonies. But Trump asserts that the entire civil and criminal justice system is out to get him. As for January 6, he labels the convicted insurrectionists who attacked the U.S. Capitol “patriots” and “martyrs,” and promises to pardon them if he recaptures the White House.
Trump’s congressional sycophants have fallen in line behind him in adopting his false, revisionist history of the insurrection and his assault on the criminal justice system. But as the attack on the U.S. Capitol occurred, Republicans in Congress—including then-Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.)—were clear about what was happening and who was responsible. A week after the riot, McConnell went to the Senate floor and said, “The mob was fed lies. They were provoked by the president and other powerful people.”
After voting to acquit Trump in his second impeachment, McConnell said:
There's no question, none, that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of the day…
The people who stormed this building believed they were acting on the wishes and instructions of their president, and having that belief was a foreseeable consequence of the growing crescendo of false statements, conspiracy theories and reckless hyperbole which the defeated president kept shouting into the largest megaphone on planet Earth.
He did not do his job. He didn't take steps so federal law could be faithfully executed and order restored.
No. Instead, according to public reports, he watched television happily—happily—as the chaos unfolded. Even after it was clear to any reasonable observer that Vice President Pence was in serious danger.
Today McConnell supports Trump’s re-election bid.
History Might Not Repeat Itself, But Sometimes It Rhymes
Trump has followed the lead of his most heinous predecessor.
Trump peppers his rants with bigotry, fear, and terror. He refers to immigrants as “vermin” who are “poisoning the blood” of the United States. He says, falsely, that they are criminals from “prisons,” “mental institutions,” and “insane asylums.” Trump warns Americans to resist immigration or “you won’t have a country anymore.”
In Mein Kampf, Hitler wrote that he “was repelled by the conglomeration of races…repelled by this whole mixture of Czechs, Poles, Hungarians, Ruthenians, Serbs, and Croats, and everywhere the eternal mushroom of humanity – Jews and more Jews… [His] hatred grew for the foreign mixture of peoples….” (Shirer, p. 27) And he spoke repeatedly about the need to “increase and preserve the species and the race.” (Shirer, p. 86)
Pledging that, if elected, he will be “dictator for a day,” Trump has vowed publicly to “root out” his political opponents. And he promises to stack the federal government with cronies who will never disagree with him.
Hitler said repeatedly that he would “know neither rest nor peace until the November criminals [who, he falsely claimed, had ‘stabbed Germany in the back’ with the onerous Versailles Treaty of 1918] had been overthrown.” He banished or executed those who crossed him. (Schirer, p. 70)
During his first term in office, Trump stacked his administration and the courts with allies, including a federal judge in Florida who presides—and delays—one of the three remaining criminal cases against him. That judge—and many of his other appointees—were and are manifestly unqualified for their jobs.
Hitler co-opted the judiciary and then established his own special courts. He alone became the law. (Shirer, 268-274)
The Washington Post reported in February 2024:
Just before the former president lost the 2020 election to President Biden, Trump issued an executive order designed to gut civil service job protections for workers across the government. It would have paved the way for the workers to be replaced with others, including political partisans, subject to termination at will—a move the Republican president backed because he felt nonpartisan bureaucrats were hampering many of his policies. Trump has promised to reinstate the directive, which Biden quickly revoked after his inauguration. It created a new federal employment category, Schedule F, that would make federal jobs vulnerable to partisan political whims by weakening guardrails meant to ensure a nonpartisan bureaucracy.
Initial estimates that Trump’s edict would apply to more than 50,000 government employees were far too low.
Hitler populated the government with his lackeys. Before becoming chancellor, he vowed that “when the National Socialist movement is victorious in this struggle, then there will be a National Socialist Court of Justice too. Then the November 1918 revolution will be avenged and heads will roll!” (Shirer, p. 141)
Trump understands the importance of symbols and branding. “MAGA” and related paraphernalia—hats, T-shirts, flags—are no accident.
Hitler likewise understood the power of symbols and used the swastika as a unifying image.
Trump co-opted religious evangelicals, many of whom view him as the divine messenger for their cause.
Hitler exploited his country’s history to gain the support of its religious institutions. Then he assumed control over all of them.
Trump has persuaded many industrial magnates to support him because his policies will favor them economically, including a promise to reverse climate initiatives affecting the major oil companies in return for $1 billion in contributions to his current campaign.
Hitler cultivated industry leaders who supported his rise to power – until it was too late to stop his heinous acts that disserved even them.
Trump understands the power of lies, deception, and disinformation. He rode to the White House on the wings of his “birther” lie about President Barack Obama’s origins.
Hitler rode lies to power too: “[A]t a given sign it unleashes a veritable barrage of lies and slanders against whatever adversary seems most dangerous, until the nerves of the attacked persons break down… This is a tactic based on precise calculation of all human weaknesses, and its result will lead to success with almost mathematical certainty…” (Shirer p. 22-23)
Trump understands the power of fomenting fear and encouraging terror. January 6, 2021 made that abundantly clear.
One hundred years earlier, Hitler had discovered that power, writing: “I achieved an equal understanding of the importance of physical terror toward the individual and the masses… For while in the ranks of their supporters the victory achieved seems a triumph of the justice of their own cause, the defeated adversary in most cases despairs of the success of any further resistance.”
Trump has never won a majority of the popular vote for President.
Hitler topped out at 37 percent before an aging President Paul von Hindenburg gave him the chancellorship.
Trump uses television and social media to outline his views and to reveal—in advance—how he will proceed if he gains control of the government.
Hitler used Mein Kampf as a roadmap of his ambitions and his plans to fulfil them. Trump meets all of the criteria that one of Hitler’s professors listed in describing the future dictator: lacking “self-control and, to say the least, he was considered argumentative, autocratic, self-opinionated, and bad-tempered, and unable to submit to school discipline.”
The Lawyer’s Dilemma
So Adolf Hitler seeks your help in dismantling the foundational institutions of government and undermining popular support for democracy.
He offers you a big retainer and dangles the promise of a media spotlight for his outrageous positions.
Your assignment is simple: Do whatever it takes to help him achieve power—but all of the steps must be lawful. His objective—and yours if you accept—is the destruction of the U.S. Constitution and the demise of the rule of law.
Do you take the case?
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