DOJ officials who investigated Trump reassigned to take on sanctuary cities

Half a dozen senior “career” Justice Department officials have reportedly been reassigned to President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown.

One of those reassigned was Corey Amundson, who had been head of the public integrity section, according to NBC News. That section of the DOJ “prosecutes political corruption and played a role in both DOJ criminal cases against the former president.”

“Corey Amundson is as talented a federal prosecutor and Department leader as I know,” a former senior Trump DOJ official told Reuters. “It’s a difficult job managing Public Integrity, and he’s done it admirably for more than six years across two Administrations with absolute integrity and without regard to politics.”

Another reassigned official was George Toscas, who’d served as the deputy assistant attorney general in the national security division.

“He played a key role in pushing for the 2022 search of Mar-a-Lago for classified documents that Donald Trump, then a former president, had declined to return to the National Archives,” NBC News notes.

The section chiefs in the DOJ’s environmental and natural resources division have also been reassigned to Trump’s immigration crackdown.

One of the environmental division officials confirmed that they’ve been assigned specifically to the “Sanctuary Cities Environmental Working Group.”

“Everyone they don’t like is being dumped there,” another official said of the group.

All this comes after acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove reportedly sent a memo to staffers on Wednesday highlighting the DOJ’s newfound focus on locating and removing illegal aliens.

“The memo ordered the department’s civil division to examine ways to take legal action against cities with so-called sanctuary laws that forbid local officials from cooperating with federal immigration enforcement,” according to NBC News.

“The memo also ordered prosecutors to investigate for potential prosecution any state or local officials who resist or fail to comply with the enforcement of federal immigration law,” NBC’s reporting continues.

Others, meanwhile, are either being fired or voluntarily resigning. Take the head of the DOJ’s so-called “gender equality effort.” She resigned Friday, citing the Trump administration’s decision to shut down the former Biden administration’s Orwellian “affinity groups.”

Jill Anderson, a career Senior Executive Service (SES) employee and the general counsel of the Justice Department’s Executive Office of Immigration Review (EOIR), has also been fired.

She was reportedly working on some legal brief Monday when she received an email telling her she’d been fired, as reported by Government Executive.

“She was surprised and confused, but after making some calls to colleagues realized at least three other career executives at EOIR had received the same notice,” Government Executive notes. “Within an hour, Anderson told Government Executive, she was shut out of all computer systems and her phone was wiped.”

Three other EOIR executives were also fired — Office of Policy Assistant Director Lauren Alder Reid, Deputy Director Mary Cheng, and Chief Immigration Judge Sheila McNulty.

“We all worked well with the transition team, gave them the information they needed,” Anderson complained of the firings. “We were all very much caught off guard. I’m a career civil servant and I have served in several administrations. I’m not an obstructionist.”

Leftists aren’t happy about any of this.

“These are career people,” former federal prosecutor Randall Eliason complained to Reuters. “They are not political. They are people who have been in these positions often many, many years or even decades. They have developed a real expertise, and that’s a great resource for the government.”

He went on to call the firings and reassignments “part of a broader assault on expertise in the government.”

Vivek Saxena

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