It’s difficult to succinctly explain how extreme and extraordinary President Donald Trump’s actions as president have been. But few things tell the tale like the many government officials – including lots of Trump appointees – who have called that out.
So many people have served with Trump and seemingly tried to make the best of the situation, only to find themselves pushed to the brink.
CNN’s Zachary B. Wolf in 2023 counted two dozen Trump Cabinet members, top officials and allies who turned against him.
And increasingly, this phenomenon has taken hold at the Justice Department.
As Trump has set about wielding the department in extraordinarily political ways – culminating in the Trump-demanded indictments of former FBI director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James – the departures have proliferated.
They include a number of conservative US attorneys and prosecutors whom Trump sought to elevate, along with nonpartisan prosecutors who were hired in to career positions. And as notably, they include people at some of the most prominent districts in the Justice Department – the districts often tasked with handling the most high-profile cases.
Let’s recap.
In perhaps the most high-profile case, Trump successfully pushed to remove US attorney Erik Siebert after Siebert balked at pursuing Trump’s foes, most notably James.
Trump had nominated Siebert to take over the district just four months earlier. Siebert is the son-in-law of a top aide to Republican Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin and had been recommended by the governor’s office, the Washington Post reported.
Trump then installed a loyalist, Lindsey Halligan, who has since brought the Trump-demanded indictments of James and Comey.
But Siebert isn’t the only conservative prosecutor to be ousted. CNN reported Monday that Maggie Cleary, who some had expected to take over rather than Halligan, has also been removed from the office. Cleary had sided with career prosecutors who opposed bringing the Comey indictment.
Cleary is a self-described conservative lawyer who previously served in Republican administrations in Virginia. And the fact that she objected would seem to say a lot.
Cleary, after all, once suggested she herself was the victim of the Justice Department being weaponized against her as Trump claims. She said she was wrongly framed for participating in the January 6, 2021, riot at the US Capitol by someone who contacted a news organization and claimed to have a photo of her on the Capitol grounds that day, though she was not there
Beyond that, we’ve also seen two high-level career prosecutors fired: Michael Ben’Ary and Maya Song. Ben’Ary’s departure is particularly notable given he had been leading a high-profile prosecution related to the 2021 Abbey Gate bombing in Afghanistan.
Ben’Ary responded to his firing by posting a typed note on his office door that said DOJ leaders were “more concerned with punishing the President’s perceived enemies than they are with protecting our national security.”
We continue to learn more about what happened here. But it seems in many ways to echo what happened to the east.
CNN has previously reported US Attorney Todd Gilbert resigned after a standoff with the White House over who would serve as his deputy. Gilbert is a former Republican Virginia state House speaker whom Trump had picked for the job less than two months earlier. (Around the time of his exit, he posted a gif on social media featuring the actor Will Ferrell in “Anchorman” saying, “Boy, that escalated quickly!”)
The New York Times reported the White House wanted prosecutor Zachary Lee, Gilbert’s deputy, sidelined, because of his reservations about requested prosecutions. Lee has also since left the office.
Lee was first appointed special assistant US attorney under the George W. Bush administration in 2005 and, according to the Times, was elevated during the first Trump administration.
This one is a little further in the rearview. But it was no less striking.
Rather than push for politically motivated charges against Trump’s foes, the Trump administration here appeared to push a politically motivated dropping of charges – against New York Mayor Eric Adams. The administration appeared to tie the dropping of charges to Adams assisting in its illegal-immigration crackdown.
“Everything here smacks of a bargain: Dismissal of the indictment in exchange for immigration policy concessions,” a judge later said.
At least seven prosecutors resigned in a span of 36 hours, mostly in New York but also in Washington.
Most prominent among them was interim SDNY US Attorney Danielle Sassoon, a conservative lawyer and former clerk for the late Justice Antonin Scalia whom Trump had appointed to lead the office just weeks earlier. She said the orders she received were “inconsistent with my ability and duty to prosecute federal crimes without fear or favor and to advance good-faith arguments before the courts.”
They also included assistant US attorney Hagan Scotten, who clerked for two conservative justices. He issued an even stronger rebuke in a blistering letter.
“I expect you will eventually find someone who is enough of a fool, or enough of a coward, to file your motion,” Scotten said. “But it was never going to be me.”
A top prosecutor in the US attorney’s office in Washington, DC, Denise Cheung, resigned in February after declining a request to open a grand jury investigation into an Environmental Protection Agency funding decision by the Biden administration. She said the “quantum of evidence did not support that action” and indicated she felt pressured to comply.
Another prosecutor, Sean P. Murphy, resigned in March while citing the erosion of the DOJ’s independence from the president.
“To maintain credibility, there has to be some separation between the president and the Department of Justice, some measure of independence,” Murphy told NPR. “And that’s nearly gone.”
