When the White House fired a federal prosecutor in Los Angeles last week, it could have been dismissed as an isolated lawsuit, with the administration targeting former Democratic Congressional candidates who denounced President Trump on the campaign trail.
But since then, it has been revealed that the fire is part of a broader campaign against Trump’s perceived enemy, which has hit the Justice Department and some of the nation’s best law firms.
Last Friday, the White House fired Adam Schleifer, a US lawyer for Strike Force, a corporate and securities fraud, who led the investigation into Pro Trump executives. After the Times reported on the issue, White House spokesman Caroline Leavitt issued a statement saying the Department of Justice had eliminated at least 50 lawyers and representatives nationwide in the past few weeks.
“The American people deserve a judicial branch filled with honest arbitrators of the law who want to protect democracy and not destroy it,” Leavitt said.
Leavitt said it was said that those fired were overturning democracy, and White House officials did not explain that they did not respond to requests for more information.
Trump has authority over federal prosecutors because the U.S. lawyers’ office is part of the Justice Department, which falls under the administrative division rather than the Judiciary Department. For US lawyers, who are politically appointees, it is normal for them to be resigned or kicked out when the new administration comes to power, but a few lawyers said line prosecutors like Schleifer are career employees who can end with just low performance or misconduct.
By firing individual prosecutors in an email that sources say “on behalf of President Donald J. Trump,” the White House has taken normative steps that could be illegal, and repeated, according to current and former prosecutors, could undermine the independence of individual prosecutors across the Department of Justice. Sources familiar with Schleifer’s firing, along with several others who spoke to the Times, requested anonymity citing concerns about the backlash.
The White House and the U.S. Department of Justice have not given exactly why Schleifer was fired. Schleifer and the US Lawyer’s office in Los Angeles declined to comment.
Sources from federal law enforcement said they suspected Schleifer’s firing was linked to critical comments he made about Trump during his Congressional campaign and the prosecution of a fast food CEO who has given nearly $40,000 to Trump and the Republican cause in recent years.
Connie Woodhead, a 30-year Justice Department veteran and former first assistant US lawyer at the firm where Schleifer worked, called the situation he left “unprecedented.”
“I think it’s very cold… we have our lawyers, especially without further explanation. [Trump] “A donor to the administration, or to the administration,” she said.
Trump’s team keeps his intentions to oust the president or his allies and employees who challenged their interests from the government. An hour before Schleifer was fired, Laura Rumer, who was sometimes Trump’s advisor, began calling for his expulsion on social media. Rumer later celebrated the shooting at X on Saturday, saying that all “Biden Holdovers, who openly express bias against President Trump,” should be fired.
The work of a US lawyer assistant is usually unattractive and involves a common but important legal groan of prosecuting federal crimes of all sorts, ranging from white-collar fraud to international drug conspiracy and public corruption. It is the point where many prominent legal careers begin, and major law firms often poach top talent. Maintaining the highest prosecutors whose casework is primarily apolitical has been a long-standing challenge for the government.
Several former federal prosecutors said laying off U.S. assistant lawyers is usually a tedious process involving employee supervisors and top positions in district offices. Prosecutors could be placed in a “performance improvement plan” before, for example, termination is considered.
“Carrier prosecutors who are past their probation status have public services protections, which usually means there’s a long and well documented process before one of them is fired,” said Carrie Palmer, a former supervisor at the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Los Angeles, a partner at Halpern May Ybarra Gelberg LLP. “It’s difficult to fire people who have passed the probationary period.”
Sources told The Times over the weekend that Los Angeles US lawyer Joseph T. McNally wasn’t involved in the decision to end Schleifer. The unofficially licensed sources feared retaliation, but the alleged termination of Schleifer was motivated in part by the case assigned to Andrew Weederhorn, former CEO of fast food chains Fatburger and Johnny Rockets.
The big ju judge indicted Weederhorn last May and was used for personal gains in accusations of hiding taxable income from the federal government by paying “shareholder loans” from the company to himself and his family. He pleaded not guilty.
Wiederhorn’s lawyers are actively pushing for Justice Department officials to drop the case, according to two sources. The lawsuit against Weederhorn, which has donated about $40,000 to Trump’s Political Action Committee and the Republican National Committee over the past two years, is still pending in federal court. The defense team did not respond to requests for comment after Schleifer was fired.
Beyond the Weederhorn incident, there are also concerns that Schleifer was targeted for political reasons. Schleifer made some misguided remarks about Trump when he ran for a seat in the Congress in New York’s 17th district in 2020. Schleifer accused Trump of eroding the integrity of the constitution.
One Schleifer’s former colleague said that despite his political ambitions outside the office, he only focused on the law when he came to work.
“He’s very smart. He’s hardworking. And he’s fair. He judges the case based on evidence,” Woodhead said. “He was apolitical in the office.”
Schleifer left his post during the 2020 political campaign, but was hired by former US Atty in 2021 to the office prior to Biden’s inauguration. Trump appointee Nicola Hannah. Hannah is currently part of Weederhorn’s defense team. No Wiederhorn’s lawyer has responded to requests for comment from The Times.
Schleifer’s shooting appears to be just the latest incident striking the Department of Justice.
Reagan Fonden, a US lawyer representing the Western District of Tennessee, was also recently fired after a single line email from the White House, according to the Daily Memphian. Fondren could not be immediately contacted for comment.
Adam Cohen, director of the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force, wrote on LinkedIn last month that he was suddenly fired more than 26 years after pursuing “old-school gangsters, street gang members, cartel bosses, terrorists” and more for the Washington Department of Justice.
“Putting the bad guys into prison was just as apolitical as it gets,” Cohen wrote. “I served under five presidents and 11 lawyer generals. My personal politics never really related.”
More than 12 prosecutors were fired in January after working on a criminal case against Trump. That included Gregory Bernstein, who worked in the main fraud section of the US Lawyer’s Office in Los Angeles.
Bernstein previously helped investigate special advisers’ investigation into allegations that Trump mishandled the false documents after Jack Smith left office, and promoted a rebellion that lied about the outcome of the 2020 election. Bernstein refused to request an interview.
Each special counsel prosecutor received a letter from the Justice Department saying that given his “significant role” in Trump’s indictment, he “doesn’t believe I can trust you to help the president implement the agenda.”
Those attorneys then maintained their counsel and challenged the legality of dismissal through appeals to the Merit System Protection Board. Palmer said if the board does not overturn Schleifer and Bernstein’s shootings, they will have to sue in federal court to get the job back.
Jack Smith was one of hundreds of former Justice Department lawyers who signed an open February letter to career federal prosecutors who expressed “alert” about recent actions by department leadership. The letter follows a Department of Justice order dismissing a corruption charge against New York Mayor Eric Adams, despite high-level prosecutors from both ends of the political spectrum who resign in protest of the order.
“We were taught to pursue justice without fear or favor, and we knew that our investigation and accusation decisions should be based solely on facts and law,” the letter states. “I knew these values were more than just the requirements of the manual. They were the basis of a fair and mere legal system, and whoever was the president supported them.”
Current and former federal prosecutors have expressed concern about the ability of current and former federal prosecutors to find work in the private sector after issuing several executive orders targeting several executive orders linked to some of his political enemies, including opposition from the 2016 election, including Robert S. Mueller III and Hillary Clinton.
A district court judge ruled that some of Trump’s orders targeting law firms were likely unconstitutional, but some companies tried to appease him.
Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP – A partner who once tried to file a criminal case against Trump while working for the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office has agreed to contribute $40 million in legitimate services to spark Trump support, including “the President’s Task Force to Fight Anti-Female Projects and other opposing projects.”
The company, which reportedly employs around 2,000 people, also agreed to audit its employment practices and pledged to “not adopt, use or pursue DEI policies.”
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