New Leaders at Justice Department Shake Up Senior-Level Positions
New leaders at the Justice Department have reassign at least 20 career officials, effectively sidelining them from senior-level positions where they’ve worked for years. The changes are viewed by Justice Department officials as a way to push some of the career lawyers to consider leaving the department.
Among those who have been reassigned are senior lawyers in the criminal division and the national security division, as well as prosecutors who work on international affairs. Some seasoned career prosecutors were ordered to report to a new task force in the coming weeks.
Federal civil service regulations generally protect career employees at the Justice Department from being reassigned for at least 120 days after new leadership takes over. However, Trump administration officials appear to be interpreting the 120-day rule to not apply in this instance, citing the acting attorney general and deputy attorney general in place.
The changes could become subject to complaints before the Merit Systems Protection Board, a quasi-judicial agency that is supposed to protect civil servants from political retribution in changes of administrations.
In related news, new acting US attorneys have been named in key districts. Ed Martin, a hardline, socially conservative activist, is now the acting US attorney in the District of Columbia, while John Durham has been tapped as interim US attorney in the Eastern District of New York, and Danielle Sassoon as the interim head of the Southern District of New York.