By Sarah N. Lynch
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Two key Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives on Tuesday demanded more information after the Trump administration abruptly fired career prosecutors who investigated President Donald Trump, and reassigned others from their positions to a newly created “sanctuary city” working group.
In a letter to Acting Attorney General James McHenry, House Judiciary Committee ranking Democrat Jamie Raskin and House Oversight Ranking Democrat Gerald Connolly demanded a list of all affected Justice Department employees and an explanation for why they were reassigned or fired.
“We write to you with alarm and profound concern about reports of the administration engaging in the widespread summary firing and involuntary reassignment of excellent career prosecutors and federal agents throughout the Department of Justice,” they wrote.
“This onslaught against effective DOJ civil servants began within hours of President Donald Trump’s inauguration, in complete contradiction of the president’s repeated pledges to maintain a merit-based system for government employment,” they wrote, adding that the personnel moves “likely violated longstanding federal laws.”
A Justice Department spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Trump’s acting political appointees have sown chaos within the Justice Department during his first week in office.
On Monday, the acting attorney general fired more than a dozen career prosecutors who worked on Special Counsel Jack Smith’s two criminal investigations into Trump’s retention of classified records and his efforts to subvert the presidential election.
Another 20-some senior career officials, including the top public integrity prosecutor and the senior career ethics official, have also been removed from their posts and ordered to report to a newly created “sanctuary city” working group.
One of those officials, the Public Integrity Section Chief Corey Amundson, resigned from the department on Monday.
Meanwhile, the Trump-appointed top federal prosecutor in Washington on Monday also opened an internal review into the use of a felony obstruction charge in prosecutions of people accused of taking part in the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol, according to a source familiar with the matter.
In addition to seeking detailed information about all impacted Justice Department employees, Raskin and Connolly also demanded to know whether the White House and the Justice Department have communicated about the content of career employees’ social media accounts and their political leanings.
(Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)
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