Dismissals at Justice Dept. Seek to Bypass Civil Service and Whistle-Blower Laws
A new batch of more than 20 career employees at the department and its component agencies were fired on Friday, including the attorney general's own ethics adviser, Joseph W. Tirrell. Others who were dismissed included a handful of senior officials at the U.S. Marshals Service, as well as prosecutors and support staff who once worked for Jack Smith when he was a special counsel prosecuting Donald J. Trump.
On the surface, the various groups have little in common. Justice Department veterans, however, see an overarching pattern: a quickening effort by the Trump administration to ignore and eventually demolish longstanding civil service legal precedents meant to keep politics out of law enforcement work, and to give more leeway to the president's loyalists.
The latest round of dismissals appears to have picked up steam after the Supreme Court last week allowed, for the time being, the administration to go forward with mass layoffs of federal workers. The decision gave the president more legal leeway to fire people en masse, at least for now.
Posting on a networking site on Monday, Mr. Tirrell asserted that he had been fired without cause and shared his termination notice from Attorney General Pam Bondi. The letter misspelled his name and did not offer a specific reason for his dismissal, saying only that the Constitution authorized it.
Employment law experts say such letters are at odds with decades of case law, as well as the decisions of an obscure part of the federal government called the Merit Service Protection Board. Taken together, both have stood for the principle that career civil servants can be fired only for cause.
Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
16 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Law scholars say Gov. Abbott's bid to oust Rep. Wu is unprecedented, lacks legal basis
Quorum breaking has a long history in Texas; however, Gov. Greg Abbott's Tuesday petition to the state's Supreme Court is unprecedented and lacks evidence, legal experts tell KXAN. Solve the daily Crossword
Yahoo
28 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Trump Sends Maxwell to Club Fed with Puppies, Anti-Aging—and Easy Escapes
Jeffrey Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell is enjoying cushy new digs at a prison camp that has no cell blocks or guard towers but does offer a full gym, yoga classes, and a 'puppy program.' Maxwell, 63, was quietly transferred last week from a prison in Florida to a minimum-security camp in Bryan, Texas. Oversight at her new facility is so lax, it partially relies on the honor system to keep inmates from—quite literally—walking off its wall-free campus, as three women did in 2017. Federal Prison Camp, Bryan has been nicknamed 'Club Fed,' as its inmates have access to an outdoor running track, music programs, intramural competitions, social and cultural events, and activities like table tennis, prison consultant Michael Santos says. At the facility, Maxwell will be permitted to buy mascara ($13.10), eyeliner ($1.70), concealer ($7.75), powder ($17), lip gloss ($3.40), makeup wipes ($9.25), and, the priciest luxury available, L'Oréal Revita anti-aging cream ($26.00), according to a comissary list obtained by the Daily Beast. Inmates are allowed to spend $360 a month there. If she wishes, Maxwell can also buy materials for hobbies like painting, crocheting, and sewing, all of which are offered for sale. If she is tight on cash, she is also free to enjoy the camp's free classes for weightlifting, yoga, and even Pilates. Julie Howell, a 44-year-old who self-surrendered to Federal Prison Camp, Bryan last month on a theft charge, told her loved ones she was accepted into a 'puppy program' that allows her to spend her days training a '12-week-old yellow lab named Louise' to become a service dog, she posted to Facebook on July 22. 'The program is really fantastic, and they are very strict about adhering to the rules and training,' she posted. 'This is my 'job' while I'm here, and it's literally 24/7 as the puppies stay in the room with us. It's me, my bunkie, and a puppy, and we have to supervise the puppy at all times.' She added of her prison gig, 'I absolutely love it.' Convicted sex traffickers like Maxwell are not typically permitted in a minimum-security camp, and the family of one of her victims, Virginia Giuffre, slammed Trump for granting Maxwell such 'luxury' accommodations. Maxwell's transfer came shortly after she spoke with Justice Department officials about Epstein for two days. It remains unclear exactly how Maxwell is spending her time in Texas. She now lives in dormitory-style housing on the same property as disgraced Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes and reality TV star Jen Shah. Maxwell is no ordinary inmate. However, a handbook obtained by the Daily Beast lays out what her day-to-day life would look like if she were treated as one at the Texas facility. The handbook adds that Maxwell would be required to be awake by 6 a.m. for work each day, with breakfast beginning at 6:30 a.m. most days. Her work in the kitchen would not stop there. An early lunch is served between 10:30 and 11:30 a.m. on weekdays, followed by dinner that is served between 4:30 and 5:30 p.m. According to the protocol outlined in the handbook, last updated in 2023, Maxwell would spend her first three months working in the prison camp's kitchen, where she would be required to wear an all-khaki prison outfit and a lanyard identifying her by name. Maxwell would earn between 12 cents and $1.15 an hour for her work and would be eligible to seek a new prison job—perhaps practicing carpentry or training service dogs—after 90 days. FPC Bryan is often heralded as one of the most laid-back places to be a prisoner in the United States. Prison Pink Lady Consultants writes on its website that, save for Maxwell, who is British, its population is made up of 'non-violent female federal inmates' from the Southern United States, many of whom are serving time for financial crimes. It adds that inmates usually sleep in two-person bunk beds in a room of four in dormitories where guards have limited oversight. The property is 37 acres and is surrounded by residential neighborhoods. A public park and basketball court are just a half-mile away. Inmate Aid, another prison consultant, writes that FPC Bryan offers 'grounds with unsecured perimeters, generally unrestricted or open movement within those perimeters, and low inmate-to-staff ratios.' It adds that inmates there can 'expect relatively relaxed monitoring of mail, Corrlinks email, telephone calls, and visits, as well as fairly unsupervised and unmonitored recreational and leisure activities.' Still, FPC Bryan is a prison, and it is safe to assume that the majority of its population does not want to be there. A former inmate described the camp to Fox Business as 'close' to being the 'hellhole' of the U.S. prison system. Maxwell is sure to face challenges that most others do not have to face. While former FPC Bryan inmates note that inmates at the camp regularly rally behind each other and become friends, Maxwell carries significantly more baggage than someone convicted of wire fraud. A report by The Telegraph claims that Maxwell is already an outcast in Texas. 'Every inmate I've heard from is upset she's here,' Howell told the paper. 'This facility is supposed to house non-violent offenders. Human trafficking is a violent crime.' Howell expressed fear that the facility—which reportedly has no razor wire, watch towers, and has fewer guards per inmate than the majority of federal prisons—may not be equipped to protect Maxwell and other inmates from outside harm. 'This is a camp you can literally walk out of,' she told the Telegraph. 'I don't care how many people she turns in; it doesn't take away from her actions. As a mother of a sex-trafficking victim, I'm absolutely disgusted she's in this facility. Regardless of her reasoning, I don't think she belongs here.' Solve the daily Crossword
Boston Globe
42 minutes ago
- Boston Globe
Fed up with Beacon Hill, those seeking to change the Legislature turn to 2026 voters for reforms
Kaufman is now leading the charge on two petitions that target stipends lawmakers earn for holding leadership positions. One would eliminate stipends altogether; the other would limit stipends to a certain percentage of a legislative leader's base salary, among other restrictions. The effort emerged after a Such issues 'should have been dealt with in a deliberative process in the Legislature,' said Kaufman, who filed bills to address the stipends only to have legislators ignore them. 'We feel like we have to take democracy back. The Legislature failed us and continues to fail us.' Advertisement Another petition submitted Wednesday would overhaul the election system by allowing open primaries that candidates from all different parties would compete in, an effort to increase competition to incumbents who are often unchallenged. Yet another would extend the state's public records law to the Legislature and governor, which would put Massachusetts in line with most other states. Both petitions are pushed by the Advertisement The petitions, if they make it to the 2026 ballot, build off momentum from the The success of that audit campaign, combined with a changing public perception of Beacon Hill, has fueled new efforts 'to try and pry open information from the Legislature,' said Horowitz, who studies the impact of ballot questions. 'People are recognizing that there is a real opportunity in the ballot question,' he said. Legislator pay has been a recurring topic on ballots nationwide. Peverill Squire, a professor at the University of Missouri who's studied Conversely, among the most common — and unpopular — measures that lawmakers themselves have put before voters are ones to increase their own pay. Squire said there have been nearly 250 such measures over the past 100 years, but the median 'yes' vote sits around 43 percent. Advertisement 'It's a problem that lawmakers are always hoping to tackle,' Squire said during a panel Wednesday at the National Conference of State Legislatures Legislative Summit in Boston. In Massachusetts, lawmakers' pay is automatically adjusted every two years through a complicated process involving two separate mechanisms: one guaranteed by the state Constitution, the other baked into a The constitutionally mandated adjustment is determined by the governor, who every two years must decide whether to raise the annual base salary for legislators. In December, Governor Maura Healey said lawmakers would get an The extra pay lawmakers can earn on top of their salaries also jumped by Some legislative leaders defended the extra pay. House Speaker Ron Mariano said stipends reward those who take on more work and responsibility and helps to 'keep people thinking about this job as a potential career.' He also said legislative leaders are best positioned to determine who receives them. 'Who better to know who shows leadership and puts in effort than the leaders who are trying to move the agenda?' Advertisement The Quincy Democrat did not say whether he'd support subjecting lawmakers to the public records law, arguing it depends on the details of 'what you're opening up' to the public. 'There are some things that are better left to negotiate in private,' he said, 'and I would prefer it that way.' There is a relatively low bar for starting the petition process: submitting just 10 signatures from registered voters and the full text of the law or amendment they wish to have enacted. That signed petition must be filed with Campbell's office, accompanied by certificates of voter registration for each signatory. After that, Campbell's office will review the language and, if deemed acceptable, will certify it and create a summary of the proposed law or amendment that will be printed on the petition forms. Once Campbell announces which petitions are certified for the ballot, typically in early September, campaigns can begin gathering the tens of thousands of signatures necessary to get it on the ballot. Initiative petitions for laws require two separate rounds of signature gathering and submission, and the number of signatures required for each round depends on the number of votes cast for governor at the most recent gubernatorial election. For the 2026 election, campaigns will have to collect a total of at least 87,003 signatures over the two rounds, and no more than one-quarter of the signatures can come from any one county. Other petitions filed Wednesday would allow Committee for Public Counsel Services employees to unionize, reduce the state's personal income tax to 4 percent from 5 percent, overhaul a Advertisement Another initiative that was certified last year and will be on the 2026 ballot would Mariano has been vocal about lawmakers' frustration with the ballot initiative process, saying citizen-written laws can create unintended consequences. Massachusetts lawmakers have also regularly rewritten voter-approved laws, such as slowing the implementation of a reduction in The House just this spring passed a He said he doesn't see the proposals as a rebuke of the Legislature, but rather a demonstration of the 'ease' of getting a measure before voters. 'I see a lot more of these well-financed special interest groups taking advantage of a procedure that I think is way too easy to get a question on the ballot,' he said. 'No one's talking to the voters. They're just getting signatures. It becomes an organizational chore more than anything. And when you see ballot initiatives become law, you see the holes in them.' Samantha J. Gross can be reached at
