Twenty Department of Justice (DOJ) employees who worked with special counsel Jack Smith were fired on Friday, a source familiar confirmed to the Daily Caller News Foundation.
The terminated staff includes two prosecutors, 12 support staff and six U.S. marshals who assisted with classified documents and the 2020 election investigations against President Donald Trump, according to the official.
Axios and Reuters previously reported that employees tied to the cases had been fired on Friday.
More than a dozen officials who worked with Smith were fired in January, while Smith himself resigned before Trump took office in January. Both of the cases were dismissed after Trump won the election.
The White House did not respond to a request for comment from the DCNF.
Several other DOJ employees were fired in the past week.
Joseph Tirrell, who was director of the Departmental Ethics Office, wrote on LinkedIn Monday that he was terminated by Attorney General Pam Bondi, sharing the letter he received in a post.
“Until Friday evening, I was the senior ethics attorney at the Department of Justice responsible for advising the Attorney General and Deputy Attorney General directly on federal employee ethics,” he wrote. “I was also responsible for the day-to-day operations of the ethics program across the Department. I led a small, dedicated team of professionals and coordinated the work of some 30 other full-time ethics officials, attorneys, paralegals and other specialists across the Department of Justice, ensuring that the 117,000 Department employees were properly advised on and supported in how to follow the Federal employee ethics rules.”
Patty Hartman, a public affairs employee who worked in the District of Columbia U.S. Attorney’s Office during Jan. 6 prosecutions, was likewise terminated, according to CBS News.
“There used to be a line, used to be a very distinct separation between the White House and the Department of Justice, because one should not interfere with the work of the other,” Hartman told CBS News on July 10. “That line is very definitely gone.”
In his final report, Smith claimed Trump would have been convicted if he had not won the election. Yet Smith indicated he did not bring insurrection charges because he could not prove Jan. 6 was more than a riot or that Trump incited it.
Smith sought to fast-track the cases ahead of the 2024 election but ultimately failed to bring either one to trial.
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