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CLEANING HOUSE: Trump DOJ Fires More Than a Dozen Officials Who Worked With Ex-Special Counsel Jack Smith

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The Justice Department has fired more than a dozen officials involved in former special counsel Jack Smith’s prosecution of President Trump, The Post has confirmed.

Acting Attorney General James McHenry ordered the terminations because he believed the officials could not be trusted in “faithfully implementing the president’s agenda,” a DOJ official said in a statement to The Post.

“Today, Acting Attorney General James McHenry terminated the employment of a number of DOJ officials who played a significant role in prosecuting President Trump,” the statement read. “In light of their actions, the Acting Attorney General does not trust these officials to assist in faithfully implementing the President’s agenda.”

The DOJ official argued that the firings are in line with the Trump administration’s “mission of ending the weaponization of government.”

McHenry notified the DOJ officials — who have not yet been identified — of their firings in a letter. It’s unclear exactly how many officials received termination letters from McHenry. (Read more from “CLEANING HOUSE: Trump DOJ Fires More Than a Dozen Officials Who Worked With Ex-Special Counsel Jack Smith” HERE)

DOJ Fines Restaurant for Verifying Immigrant Work Permits

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The Justice Department reached an 11th-hour settlement with a Minnesota-based restaurant chain for a $95,000 civil penalty in addition to mandatory employment training after the company required “more documents than necessary” to verify workers’ permits.

According to the 7-page settlement, Brick & Bourbon, a restaurant group with three locations in Minnesota, will be required to post forms outlining employees’ rights in both English and Spanish and undergo additional reviews into employment practices.

“It is unlawful for employers to impose additional or unnecessary requirements on employees because of their citizenship status when checking their permission to work,” Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division said in a press release Monday. “Discriminatory treatment during any step of the employment process harms workers who are lawfully participating in our economy and can deprive employers of their talents.”

The Justice Department’s Immigrant and Employee Rights Section notified the restaurants of the federal investigation in February 2023.

“The investigation found that Respondent required lawful permanent residents, but not similarly-situated U.S. citizens, to present more or different documents than required by law during the employment eligibility verification process,” the settlement read. An example includes “requiring lawful permanent residents to present a Social Security card” after applicants “already presented a valid Permanent Resident Card.” (Read more from “DOJ Fines Restaurant for Verifying Immigrant Work Permits” HERE)

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Bombshell: The FBI Spied on Kash Patel

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When Kash Patel was interviewing FBI officials about their overreach in the issuing of illegal spy warrants on Trump campaign officials, namely Carter Page, little did he know the bureau was also spying on him. The Justice Department Inspector General has a 100-page report detailing how the FBI collected his personal information while gagging Google and Apple from notifying Mr. Patel and anyone on their target list.

In 2022, Google was permitted to notify Patel, who was outraged. His record collection at the bureau spanned years. Since 2017, he was the subject of a counterintelligence operation while investigating the bureau’s operations into Mr. Page. The FBI kept renewing the information orders and a subpoena for over five years. As Paul Sperry of RealClearInvestigations, who penned this piece in the New York Post, noted, that means FBI Director Christopher Wray knew about this spy operation and signed off on its continued use. It’s yet another reason why he’s bolting from the J. Edgar Hoover Building in January (via NY Post):

According to a new government watchdog report, the FBI spied on its prospective new boss, Kash Patel.

Patel has promised to “clean house” at the Hoover Building, and hold all those who “abused their power” during the Russiagate “witch hunt” accountable.

[…]

According to a nearly 100-page report by the Justice Department’s inspector general, the FBI subpoenaed the records as part of an investigation it opened to find out whether congressional staffers leaked classified information about its Trump-Russia “collusion” case to the Washington Post and other media.

(Read more from “Bombshell: The FBI Spied on Kash Patel” HERE)

Report: DOJ Corruptly Spied On Congress Members, Staffers, And Media In 4-Year Inquiry That Resulted In No Charges

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A new report shows the creepy tactics the Department of Justice (DOJ) employed to secretly spy on certain members of Congress, media personnel, and congressional staffers who were investigating the DOJ.

The DOJ conducted four criminal investigations between 2017 and 2020 into unauthorized disclosure of classified information. The DOJ launched these investigations “while House and Senate oversight committees were investigating the Department of Justice and the FBI for their role in the Russia-collusion hoax,” as Margot Cleveland reported for The Federalist.

Despite unprecedented and indefensibly invasive investigations, the DOJ “did not charge anyone in these investigations with unauthorized disclosure of classified information,” according to a DOJ Office of Inspector General report. All four investigations are now closed.

The report, titled “A Review of the Department of Justice’s Issuance of Compulsory Process to Obtain Records of Members of Congress, Congressional Staffers, and Members of the News Media,” was released on Tuesday.

The DOJ investigated 43 congressional staffers — including 21 who worked for Democrat committees or members of Congress and 20 who worked for Republican committees or Congress members — their family members, and two Democrat members of Congress who are not named in the report, but who have been identified in other media as Rep. Eric Swalwell and then-Rep. Adam Schiff (who has now moved to the U.S. Senate). (Read more from “Report: DOJ Corruptly Spied On Congress Members, Staffers, And Media In 4-Year Inquiry That Resulted In No Charges” HERE)

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Report: 2017 DOJ Spied on Kash Patel, Lawmakers, Congressional Staffers, Reporters

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Department of Justice (DOJ) Inspector General Michael Horowitz on Tuesday found that the Justice Department in 2017 secretly surveilled lawmakers, congressional staffers, and reporters.

CNN reported that the Justice Department, in 2017, during Trump’s first term in office, secretly obtained records of Reps. Adam Schiff (D-CA) and Eric Swalwell (D-CA), Patel – who was at the time a Republican staffer for the House Intelligence Committee – as well as 21 Democrat congressional staffers, 20 Republican staffers (including Patel,) two nonpartisan congressional staffers, and eight reporters.

President-elect Donald Trump has nominated Patel to serve as the FBI Director.

Career prosecutors at the Justice Department sought records, including emails from journalists at CNN, the Washington Post, and the New York Times. (Read more from “Report: 2017 DOJ Spied on Kash Patel, Lawmakers, Congressional Staffers, Reporters” HERE)

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Justice Dept. Sues State for Allegedly Purging Noncitizens From Voter Rolls Too Close to Election

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The U.S. Department of Justice is suing Virginia, alleging that the commonwealth removed noncitizens from its voter rolls too close to Election Day.

The complaint alleges that the state Board of Elections and Virginia Commissioner of Elections Susan Beals violated the federal National Voter Registration Act (NVRA), which mandates that states must complete their maintenance program no later than 90 days before an election under a clause known as the Quiet Period Provision.

The agency alleges that Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin violated the NVRA when announcing and subsequently carrying out an executive order which required the election commissioner to regularly update the state’s voter lists to remove individuals who have been “identified as noncitizens,” and had not responded to a request to verify their citizenship in 14 days.

Under Youngkin’s executive order, Virginia has removed 6,303 individuals.

“The Executive Order formalized the Program and announced that 6,303 individuals had been removed from the rolls pursuant to the same process between January 2022 and July 2024,” the complaint said. (Read more from “Justice Dept. Sues State for Allegedly Purging Noncitizens From Voter Rolls Too Close to Election” HERE)

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DOJ Discovers Transcripts of Biden’s Biographer Interviews It Previously Denied Existed

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President Joe Biden’s Department of Justice (DOJ) admitted Monday — the day after Biden dropped his reelection bid — it possessed transcripts of Biden’s interviews with his biographer after months of denying those transcripts existed.

The DOJ told a federal Judge Monday it had located transcripts of Biden’s chats with his biographer Mark Zwonitzer months after the conversations fell under the national spotlight, reported Politico.

Special counsel Robert Hur, appointed to investigate Biden’s retention of classified documents, invited scrutiny to the interviews after revealing in his March 2024 report that he would not bring charges against Biden in part because Biden was “a well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.” Republicans sought transcripts of the Biden and Zwonitzer conversations — as well as audio recordings of Hur’s interrogations of Biden.

Biden’s DOJ has fought efforts to turn over recordings, which Republicans have argued could reveal more than the transcripts about Biden’s mental state.

Biden’s disastrous June 27 debate with Donald Trump amplified concerns from Republicans and Democrats on Biden’s capabilities. Biden ended his reelection bid Sunday after three brutal weeks of pressure from Democrats who feared his ability to run a campaign and defeat Trump in the aftermath of the debate. (Read more from “DOJ Discovers Transcripts of Biden’s Biographer Interviews It Previously Denied Existed” HERE)

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DOJ Declines to Prosecute Merrick Garland After House Holds Him in Contempt of Congress

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The Department of Justice (DOJ) revealed that it was declining to prosecute Attorney General Merrick Garland after the House of Representatives voted to hold Garland in contempt of Congress concerning his refusal to comply with Congressional subpoenas.

In a letter addressed to House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) on Friday, Carlos Felipe Uriarte, the Assistant Attorney General, explained that President Joe Biden had “asserted executive privilege and directed” Garland not to “release materials” that were subpoenaed by the House Oversight and Accountability Committee and the House Judiciary Committee in February, according to CNN.

On Wednesday, the House of Representatives voted 216 to 207 to hold Garland in contempt of Congress for not complying with subpoenas for “records, including transcripts, notes, video, and audio files,” relating to Special Counsel Robert Hur’s investigation of Biden’s “willful mishandling of classified information,” according to a press release from the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability.

“That directive was based on a legal opinion from the Department of Justice (Department) advising that asserting privilege would be legally proper,” the DOJ wrote. “The President’s directive was issued after the Department produced materials responsive to all four requests in the Committee’s subpoenas. The Department provided Special Counsel Hur’s report without any additional redactions and facilitated his congressional testimony.”

As Breitbart News previously reported, the “audio tapes of Hur’s interview with Biden” were requested due to the fact that Garland “only provided written transcripts” that were deemed “insufficient” after a transcript of Hur’s interview with Biden showed he had “poor memory.” (Read more from “DOJ Declines to Prosecute Merrick Garland After House Holds Him in Contempt of Congress” HERE)

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Biden DOJ’s Treatment of Whistleblowers Violated Federal Law, Inspector General Says

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The Department of Justice under President Joe Biden failed to comply with federal protections when suspending whistleblowers’ security clearances, according to a memo released Tuesday by the Office of the Inspector General.

The inspector general found that the Justice Department doesn’t give employees a way to appeal suspended security clearances, which does not align with a federal regulation updated in 2022, according to its memo. Additionally, the inspector general found that the DOJ under Biden failed to provide employees a reasonable opportunity to stay on the federal payroll if they think the department suspended their clearance to retaliate against them for protected whistleblower activity.

“Existing DOJ practice is inconsistent with the intent of the federal statute,” the inspector general’s office announced in a news release.

House Republicans accused the FBI in a May 18, 2023, report of retaliating against FBI special agent Stephen Friend, FBI special agent Garret O’Boyle, and FBI staff operations specialist Marcus Allen for speaking out against the agency. O’Boyle said being placed on unpaid suspension by the FBI left his family effectively homeless.

The Office of Inspector General said it unearthed these concerns after receiving complaints from “employees alleging that their security clearances were suspended in retaliation for protected whistleblowing activity.”

(Read more from “Biden DOJ’s Treatment of Whistleblowers Violated Federal Law, Inspector General Says” HERE)

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DOJ Sues Utah Claiming State Discriminated Against Transgender Inmate

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The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) filed a lawsuit against Utah accusing the state of discriminating against a transgender inmate due to requests for hormone therapy being delayed and the inmate being unable to purchase women’s clothing or be moved to a women’s facility.

The complaint accuses the Utah Department of Corrections of violating the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) by not providing an inmate with hormone therapy in a timely fashion, according to a report by Axios.

In 2022, a federal judge ruled that gender dysphoria is covered under the ADA.

The DOJ reportedly investigated the corrections department and concluded that the inmate in question had been driven to remove his testicles through a “dangerous self-surgery” last year, after multiple delays and denials of requests.

Utah Department of Corrections executive director Brian Redd responded to the allegations saying he was “blindsided” by the DOJ’s findings, as well as disappointed with the department’s approach to the investigation. (Read more from “DOJ Sues Utah Claiming State Discriminated Against Transgender Inmate” HERE)

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