Bondi Fires 20 Justice Dept. Employees Involved in Trump Prosecutions
In total, 20 people were fired from the department, including two prosecutors who worked under former special counsel Jack Smith, according to one person familiar with the removals. The rest of the dismissed employees were support staff and U.S. marshals who assisted those prosecutors, the person said.
Smith, who was appointed by then-Attorney General Merrick Garland, led the department's investigation into Trump's efforts to overturn Joe Biden's 2020 election victory, as well as a separate case focused on Trump's mishandling of classified documents found in his Mar-a-Lago home.
A representative for the Justice Department declined to comment Saturday on the firings, which were first reported by Axios.
Trump had long referred to the pair of investigations Smith led as part of a politically motivated 'witch hunt' against him. During the 2024 campaign, he vowed to fire Smith on his first day back in the White House if he won the election. Smith resigned from the Justice Department shortly before Inauguration Day in January after winding down the federal criminal cases against Trump, which prosecutors said could no longer go forward because of long-standing Justice Department policy against prosecuting a sitting president.
As part of the election-related investigation, Trump was indicted by a federal grand jury in August 2023 on four criminal counts, including conspiracy to defraud the United States; conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding; obstruction of and attempting to obstruct an official proceeding; and conspiracy against rights. In the classified documents case, Trump faced charges that included willful retention of national defense secrets, obstruction of justice and conspiracy.
However, neither case went to trial. The election-interference indictment was delayed after a Supreme Court ruling last summer greatly expanded presidential immunity for actions taken while in office. U.S. District Judge Aileen M. Cannon in Florida tossed the classified documents indictment two weeks later, ruling Smith had been unlawfully appointed. The Justice Department initially appealed that ruling but no decision was reached.
The latest firings come as the Trump administration continues to push out employees across the Justice Department and FBI, often with no explanation or warning. The efforts are creating rampant speculation and fear within the workforce over who might be terminated next, according to multiple people with knowledge of the removals.
Some people are simply fired, given a notice signed by Bondi that cites the broad powers afforded to the president in the U.S. Constitution. Others, particularly at the FBI, are told they can leave voluntarily, be demoted or be terminated.
The removals appear more individually targeted – and are happening in smaller numbers – than the high-profile ousters of senior Justice Department and FBI officials in the early months of Trump's second term, when he vowed to clean house at the department that had brought two criminal cases against him.
They are unrelated to the mass reductions-in-force and reorganizations that Trump has implemented at many other federal agencies, which the Supreme Court has said may move forward for now.
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Yomiuri Shimbun
an hour ago
- Yomiuri Shimbun
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Although modern-day America is usually considered a coffee-drinking nation, we also import hundreds of millions of dollars worth of tea each year, largely from countries such as China and India. The United States can't grow tea to the scale it consumes. In a letter to Trump, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and other officials involved in trade decisions, Peter Goggi, president of the Tea Association of the USA, expressed deep concern over the impact of tariffs. 'The United States is not a tea producing nation,' Goggi writes. 'There is no commercially grown tea that requires protection via tariffs, nor are there any tea-related farm-based jobs that would be protected by these tariffs.' Meanwhile, with such a steady, sustainable supply grown right here in the United States, yaupon stands to be the only tariff-proof source of caffeine for American consumers. 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Much like traditional tea, yaupon tea is made with dried yaupon leaves that are chopped and roasted to suit different tastes, including the familiar green and black flavor profiles of the tea-drinking world. Unlike other traditional tea importers, Harney & Sons has embraced yaupon and sources the raw ingredient from CatSpring Yaupon. The company sells a loose-leaf blend as well as a ready-to-drink bottle sold exclusively at the popular salad chain Sweetgreen. But winning over the general tea-drinking public remains an issue for yaupon farmers and importers who might add yaupon to their offerings. 'America is an on-the-go culture,' says Ahmed Rahim, founder of traditional tea importer Numi Tea, adding that he's still 'trying to find ways to get the American mindset wrapped around tea.' Despite yaupon's long history in the region, a large part of the industry still revolves around educating the public about the plant and how to drink it. For many generations, yaupon was considered invasive and burned down to its hearty roots when land needed clearing. Its Westernized botanical name, Ilex vomitoria, has also spurred erroneous beliefs that yaupon induces vomiting if consumed and has flattened interpretations to the indigenous rituals to which it was once a central ingredient. The threat of tariffs spurred small-scale yaupon farmer Crystal Stokes to pivot to education. Through her organization Project CommuniTea, Stokes travels around and teaches her Richmond community about the history and benefits of yaupon, plant identification, and how to grow yaupon at home. 'I knew that changes in administration were coming and that consumers would be less likely to purchase a plant beverage that most would be trying for the first time,' says Stokes. Despite the tariffs, traditional tea purveyors aren't overly worried. According to Paul Harney of Harney & Sons, 'there's always some degree of chaos. 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Community Hospital, the nonprofit that runs the clinic known as the Curtis Medical Center and a couple of other facilities in the region, plunged into the center of that national story when it announced on July 2 – one day before the bill's passage – that a confluence of factors had made its Curtis outpost unsustainable. It cited years-long financial challenges, inflation and 'anticipated federal budget cuts to Medicaid,' the public health insurance program for lower-income and disabled Americans. On Thursday morning, 73-year-old Sharon Jorgensen was scared the clinic had already shut its doors: She called and couldn't get someone to pick up. She needed a blood draw, so she went to the health center to see if someone was still there. It was open, after all. And now staff had a date for the closure. 'We have until Sept. 30,' Jorgensen told another local, 63-year-old Jo Popp, on her way out of the small brick building. 'I have to find a doctor. I don't have a doctor!' Popp would have to start taking a day off work for checkups, because of the drive. But she said she would try to follow the clinic's nurse practitioner – one of three people on staff – wherever she went. 'She knows us,' Jorgensen said. 'Right,' Popp said. 'She listens to us.' The clinic has been here longer than many people in town can remember, and people are struggling to make sense of the shutdown. The changes coming for Medicaid are complicated, and some won't take effect for years, which makes the timing even harder for residents to understand. Many know that Trump's bill will impose work requirements for Medicaid recipients, which seems reasonable to them, and some think – inaccurately – that the legislation was designed to end Medicaid coverage for undocumented immigrants. (An earlier version of the bill penalized states for using their own funds – separate from Medicaid – to insure the undocumented; that provision was stripped from the final bill on a technicality). Community Hospital was already losing money, and officials said they are trying to make sure they remain financially viable for the 30,000 people they serve throughout their facilities. But the timing of their decision to announce the Curtis closure has stoked suspicions in the town, leaving some residents convinced their health provider was using the president as a scapegoat. Popp, a three-time Trump voter, thought the president was cutting wasteful spending and didn't think he caused the closure. Jorgensen, a registered Republican who never voted for Trump, was frustrated that so few of her neighbors believed the Medicaid cuts played a role. 'They're huge Trumpers … and so it doesn't matter what he does – there's an excuse for it,' Jorgensen said. The retired corn and cattle farmer was used to being the odd one out in Frontier County, where 86 percent of the vote went to Trump last fall. One of those Trump supporters walked out of the clinic. 'My heart's good,' he told Jorgensen. 'Yay!' Jorgensen said. Trump repeatedly promised this year that he would not cut Medicaid. He expanded the GOP tent to include more low-income voters without college degrees, and some Republicans warned that any reduction in benefits would undercut their pitch that they are the new party of the working class. But Trump and Republican lawmakers needed to offset some of the enormous cost of the tax cuts, deportations and other campaign promises in their tax and spending law. So they turned to Medicaid. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has estimated that about 12 million people will lose health coverage because of the law, which is nonetheless projected to add trillions to the federal debt over the next decade. Republicans say that changes like work requirements will reduce fraud and ensure Medicaid is available for those it was originally intended to serve, including pregnant women and the disabled. But researchers warn those requirements will create onerous paperwork that, in practice, will prevent eligible people from getting their benefits. Other changes in the law will disadvantage the vast majority of states that expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, according to hospital groups and policy analysts, and will reduce payments to rural hospitals by reining in a financing mechanism they have long relied on to boost federal funds. KFF, a nonpartisan health policy research organization, estimates the bill would cause federal Medicaid spending in rural areas to drop by $155 billion – more than the $50 billion lawmakers set aside in the legislation to shore up rural hospitals. It's not fully clear how that $50 billion will be divided, adding to providers' uncertainty. Community Hospital declined to comment in detail on its financial picture but said in a statement that 'to ensure long-term sustainability, we must prioritize what lies ahead.' 'They're projecting where they're going to be at over the next couple of years, and if it's between jeopardizing the hospital or closing down a clinic, they're going to close a clinic,' said Jed Hansen, the executive director of the Nebraska Rural Health Association, who expects about 100,000 Nebraskans to lose health care as a result of the law. Rural health care facilities run on thin margins to serve small communities in far-flung locations. And they tend to have more patients on Medicaid, many of them self-employed farmers, small business owners and seasonal workers more likely to need public insurance. Hospital groups and executives have warned that some rural hospitals that long operated at a loss won't be able to stay open much longer, now that the Medicaid cuts have been voted in. Nationwide, far more people oppose Trump's bill than support it in polling, and Democrats hope the legislation will cost the GOP control of the House in the 2026 midterms. Even in Curtis, some unease at the Medicaid cuts is percolating. 'I'm not in agreement with this bill,' said 61-year-old Brenda Wheeler, a Republican who voted for Trump in 2016 but then soured on him and sat out last year's election. She was thinking about changing her registration to independent, upset at the cuts to Medicaid. 'When we talked about making America great again, I don't think this is what we all had in mind,' she said, as she stopped by the clinic. Down the road on the town's main street lined with American flags, Kerri Kemp said she didn't like the Medicaid cuts either. The 47-year-old got Medicaid coverage after Nebraska voters chose to expand eligibility for the program in 2018, adopting an optional part of President Barack Obama's health care overhaul. But it was hard to document all her work as a bartender, county worker and rancher, and recently she'd struggled to submit the paperwork. Now she is uninsured. Work requirements could make it harder to qualify when they take effect in 2027, just after the 2026 midterms. But Kemp, a lifelong Republican and Trump supporter, doesn't hold that against Trump and suggested he might change course. 'I really think he's gonna do something,' she said. Sitting at his desk across the street – next to a miniature Trump head and a small red punching bag labeled 'Obama stress reliever' – Curtis Mayor Brad Welch called Community Hospital's comments on federal funding 'irresponsible.' 'I don't think the signing of the 'Big Beautiful Bill' had one thing to do with the closure of this clinic,' Welch said. Community Hospital officials said they had tried to find another group to take over the clinic, without luck. But the city administrator, Andrew Lee, was still hopeful. Roberts, the senior center director, wondered if a hospital 40 miles to the north could be persuaded. 'Maybe we need to talk to Andrew about really going and schmoozing them and trying to get them to come down here,' she told a senior who stopped by the counter to get some fried chicken to take home. 'Do something,' the woman echoed. 'I mean, it's really too bad.'
