Tag: Retribution

CNN
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President Donald Trump’s political retribution tour began this week with firings of his perceived enemies inside the federal government, the targeting of former intelligence and national security officials and a directive to investigate actions by the Biden administration.

Trump and his team wasted little time reassigning nearly two dozen senior Justice Department officials and dismissing career DOJ officials who oversee the nation’s immigration courts, State Department diplomats and the commandant of the Coast Guard.

Trump also pulled the Secret Service detail for his former national security adviser, John Bolton, and the security clearances for 51 people who spoke out during the 2020 Hunter Biden investigation.

The actions are all part of an initial wave of Trump’s efforts to remove the so-called “deep state” from the federal government, as he and his team have pledged to ensure those working inside the government are loyal to the president. Trump has long complained that he was undermined by anti-Trump officials across the federal workforce in his first administration, particularly from the Justice Department and the intelligence community.

Some of the turnover between administrations, especially with a different political party taking charge, is perfectly normal. Presidents typically replace US attorneys across the country, for instance.

But Trump has also made a show of the firings he’s carried out, taking to his social media to boast about removing more than 1,000 Biden administration political appointees – and to announce the removal of four individuals from presidential advisory boards, including prominent critics such as former Joint Chiefs Chairman Mark Milley and José Andrés, the celebrity chef and restaurateur.

“Our first day in the White House is not over yet! My Presidential Personnel Office is actively in the process of identifying and removing over a thousand Presidential Appointees from the previous Administration, who are not aligned with our vision to Make America Great Again,” Trump wrote in a 12:28 a.m. Truth Social post Tuesday.

Trump’s first wave of executive actions targeted the federal workforce broadly by making it easier to fire government employees – though his executive order is already being challenged in court.

Along with the firings of federal workers, Trump took other actions to go after his perceived enemies from outside the government.

Two of Trump’s executive orders directed the Justice Department and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence to open broad investigations into Biden administration “censorship of free speech” or “weaponization” of law enforcement and intelligence agencies.

Former President Joe Biden issued a wave of pardons in the final hours of his presidency to former House January 6 Committee members and members of his family, which he said were intended to prevent Trump from launching politically motivated investigations.

Another of Trump’s executive orders revoked the security clearances of 51 former intelligence officials who signed a 2020 letter arguing that emails from a laptop belonging to Hunter Biden carried “all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.”

That executive order also revoked the security clearance of Bolton, who left the White House in November 2019 after serving as Trump’s national security adviser and has since become a Trump critic. In addition, Trump terminated the Secret Service detail that was assigned to Bolton within hours of taking office, Bolton confirmed to CNN Tuesday.

Bolton has required ongoing Secret Service protection after he left government because of threats against him from Iran. Trump initially terminated his protection after he left his administration in the first term, but Biden had restored it.

In his inaugural address, Trump claimed he would end the weaponization of the justice system: “Never again will the immense power of the state be weaponized to persecute political opponents – something I know something about.”

“We will not allow that to happen. It will not happen again,” Trump said.

But in a more free-wheeling address to supporters inside the US Capitol Visitor Center that followed Monday, the president complained about Biden’s pardons while claiming again that his critics, including former January 6 Committee member Liz Cheney, had broken the law.

More dismissals could be coming, too. A memo from Trump’s Office of Personnel Management to the acting heads of the federal agencies directed them to assess their employees who have been hired in the last year – while reminding them that those workers can be fired more easily.

“Generally, employees in the competitive service with less than one year of service, and in the excepted service with less than two years of service, can be terminated without triggering MSPB appeal rights,” said the memo, obtained by CNN, referring to the Merit Systems Protection Board.

Early moves at DOJ and FBI

Many of the high-profile dismissals on Day 1 of the second Trump presidency came from inside law enforcement.

New acting leaders at the Justice Department moved quickly to shuffle at least 20 career officials, according to sources. Those include senior lawyers in the national security division, which in the past has been insulated from shifting political winds, and international affairs, which works on extraditions and immigration matters, the sources said.

Paul Abbate, the deputy FBI director, announced Monday morning he was retiring effective immediately. Abbate was already at the FBI’s mandatory retirement age, but former Director Chris Wray – who himself had resigned this month after Trump had vowed to fire him years before his term ended – gave Abbate an extension to continue working through April to ensure a smooth transition.

There’s now a leadership vacuum atop the FBI. Senior FBI special agent Brian Driscoll, the special agent in charge of the Newark Field Office, was named acting director on Monday. The Trump administration has promised to overhaul the FBI, starting with appointing ally Kash Patel as director. Trump’s team has also weighed plans to install a political appointee into the deputy director position, which traditionally has been a career FBI agent, CNN has previously reported.

The director of the Bureau of Prisons, Colette Peters, “separated” from the bureau Monday, the BOP said in a statement. She had served in the position for two and a half years and faced extreme difficulty with staffing shortages and institutions in disrepair. Deputy Director William Lathrop is now acting director.

Both the chief judge and the general counsel of the Executive Office for Immigration Review, the nation’s immigration court system, were also asked to leave Monday. Their positions are now listed as vacant on the Justice Department website.

And the acting US attorney in Washington DC, Bridget Fitzpatrick, was also relieved of her position atop the office Monday. Fitzpatrick will stay at the US attorney’s office, but is being replaced as the top official by Ed Martin, a hardline, socially conservative activist and commentator.

Martin was an organizer with the “Stop the Steal” movement and was involved in the financing of the January 6 rally on the Ellipse that occurred directly before the attack on the Capitol. He has also publicly advocated for a national abortion ban without exceptions for rape or incest and has raised imposing criminal penalties on women and doctors involved in abortions.

Some prosecutors involved in January 6 cases said that Martin’s temporary appointment was demoralizing, with one calling it a “thumb in the eye.”

Inside the Justice Department, some career officials worried that their jobs may also be at risk. One official told CNN that they were working from home Tuesday because they were “keeping their head down” and “trying to stay employed.”

“I guess I am the only one who didn’t get pardoned,” another joked.

Other officials expressed concerns that they didn’t know who was coming in to run the criminal, civil, national security, and civil rights offices at the Justice Department on an acting basis, describing to CNN that they felt “in the dark” about temporary leadership.

Still, several DOJ employees said they were optimistic about Trump’s pick for attorney general Pam Bondi officially starting the job once confirmed by the Senate. Bondi’s history as Florida attorney general gave them hope for a steady leader, officials said.

Dismissals in Coast Guard and State Department

One of the most high-profile departures this week came from inside the military, where the commandant of the US Coast Guard, Adm. Linda Fagan, was removed from her position over “failure to address border security threats” and “excessive focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion policies,” a Department of Homeland Security official confirmed to CNN on Tuesday.

At the State Department, where newly confirmed Secretary of State Marco Rubio was sworn in Tuesday, more than a dozen career officials serving in senior roles were asked to step down from their roles, multiple sources familiar with the matter told CNN.

Many received the request prior to Monday’s inauguration. They had been serving in top posts for both management and policy as well as assistant secretaries of state, the sources said, and some were among the senior-most diplomats at the State Department.

Although it is typical for an incoming administration to appoint its own officials to senior roles, current career officials often stay while the appointees await Senate confirmation. Moreover, the scope and speed has raised alarm bells.

This is “almost certainly the first step toward a major purge and takeover of the career foreign service,” a former senior diplomat said.

Speaking to State Department staff on Tuesday, Rubio there would be “changes” at the State Department, but that they are not meant to be “punitive” or “destructive.”

“The changes will be because we need to be a 21st century agency that can move by – a cliche that’s used by many – at the speed of relevance,” Rubio said.

CNN’s Priscilla Alvarez, Natasha Bertrand, Kaitlan Collins, Jennifer Hansler, Katie Bo Lillis, Tami Luhby, Rene Marsh and Michael Williams contributed to this report.