The administration of President Donald Trump continued its revenge tour on Friday, axing two dozen prosecutors who worked on Jan. 6 cases.
The Department of Justice fired the Washington, D.C.-based prosecutors on the orders of Acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove, per the Associated Press. The move comes shortly after Trump issued pardons to more than 1,500 people charged for allegedly taking part in the Jan. 6 riots at the U.S. Capitol.
The Washington Post reported that the prosecutors were hired on as full-time staff in the Washington office after their special office to handle Jan. 6 prosecutions was disbanded. The layoff amounts to about one out of every 12 prosecutors in the D.C. office.
“I will not tolerate subversive personnel actions by the previous Administration at any U.S. Attorney’s Office,” Bove wrote in the memo ordering their termination, per Politico. “Too much is at stake. In light of the foregoing, the appropriate course is to terminate these employees.”
The layoff follows reports that the Department of Justice is considering a similar purge at the FBI. Per a report from CNN, the DOJ has drawn up a list of agents and others who were involved in investigating Trump's classified documents and election interference cases with an eye toward their ouster.
Earlier this week, DOJ officials who worked with former Special Counsel Jack Smith on those cases were fired. Those terminations were carried out under acting attorney general James R. McHenry III, a "Stop the Steal" organizer and Trump ally.
