Donald Trump has said that he has instructed the justice department to fire any remaining US attorneys installed by the previous administration, in an apparent move to stamp out political appointees of Joe Biden who might resist having Trump’s agenda guide prosecutorial decisions.
“I have instructed the termination of ALL remaining ‘Biden Era’ US Attorneys,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post on Tuesday. “We must ‘clean house’ IMMEDIATELY, and restore confidence. America’s Golden Age must have a fair Justice System – THAT BEGINS TODAY!”
The dismissal of US attorneys after a change in administration is typical, although the Trump administration has been unusually aggressive in pushing for mass firings across the board as opposed to asking for their resignations shortly after the new president takes office.
It also comes as Trump’s attorney general, Pam Bondi, and acting deputy attorney general, Emil Bove, have moved to implement the administration’s political agenda at the justice department and their vision of the unitary executive theory, where the president directs all cabinet-level agencies.
In recent days, Bove, as the number two official overseeing day-to-day operations, pushed through the dismissal of the corruption case against the New York City mayor, Eric Adams, pending a review of the case by Trump’s pick to run the US attorney’s office in Manhattan once he is confirmed by the Senate.
The Trump administration sees a crackdown on illegal immigration as its top priority after it became a central issue in the 2024 election, and Bove’s memo in the Adams case made clear that aiding a mayor who wanted to assist in deporting undocumented immigrants outweighed pursuing criminal charges.
Last week, even before Trump’s latest post, the administration started taking steps to remove roughly 20 holdover US attorneys out of 93 offices around the country, sending termination notices from the White House and disconnecting their access to government phones and computers.
The termination notices were abrupt one-sentence emails, which read: “At the direction of President Donald J Trump, I am writing to inform you that your position as US Attorney is terminated, effective immediately.”
But not all of the remaining US attorneys got the email at first because the White House presidential personnel office sent some to their internal email addresses, which only accept messages from other justice department employees, according to people familiar with the matter.
That meant some of the US attorneys, who are the chief law enforcement officers in each of their federal districts, were left guessing as to their removal once they lost access to their phones and systems until the justice department headquarters provided clarity days later, the people said.
