Leading House Democrats are demanding details from acting Attorney General James R. McHenry III about the role politics may have played in an abrupt shakeup of top officials at the Department of Justice.
The inquiry from Reps. Jamie Raskin and Gerald Connolly — the top Democrats on the House Judiciary and Oversight and Government Reform Committees, respectively — follows McHenry’s recent decision to fire more than a dozen prosecutors who worked on the Department’s investigations into Donald Trump during the Biden administration.
The Democrats also questioned the decision to rescind job offers and internship offers through the Attorney General‘s Honors Program.
“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,” Raskin and Connolly wrote in their letter to McHenry. “Taken together, your actions raise significant concern that you are determined to fill the ranks of the DOJ and FBI with career employees selected for the personal loyalty or political services they have rendered to President Trump.”
The lawmakers are asking for names of all reassigned or terminated DOJ employees since the start of Trump’s term last week, as well as details of communications with the White House related to their termination. Raskin and Connolly are also demanding information about efforts to review career employees’ social media accounts, and the role that these employees’ political opinions played in the decisions.
Trump has repeatedly suggested he intends to root out political adversaries from the U.S. government. Democrats, in the minority in both the House and Senate, have little power to force the administration to comply with their requests for information.
