Bondi fires 20 DOJ employees from Jan. 6, Trump documents cases

Attorney General Pam Bondi has fired more than 20 Justice Department employees who worked on cases involving the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol and Donald Trump's handling of classified documents, sources told Axios.Why it matters: The firings are part of a massive purge aimed at clearing DOJ of attorneys and support staff who took part in Special Counsel Jack Smith's prosecution of Trump for Jan. 6 and possessing classified documents unlawfully.The new dismissals bring the total Smith-related firings to about 35. About 15 more could face termination.Zoom in: Reuters reported Friday night that nine staffers had been let go, but Axios sources said the number was 20 and as many as 37 people could ultimately be let go from offices in Washington, Virginia, Florida and other parts of the country.The 20 ousted Friday included lawyers, support staff and U.S. marshals, one Justice official said. In some cases, the staffers had volunteered for duty to investigate or prosecute Trump. Prior to Bondi taking office, 14 other Smith-related officials were fired.The staffers were identified in an internal investigation by Bondi's "Weaponization Working Group," which she established shortly after taking office as part of an effort to purge entrenched political enemies of Trump.It's unclear how many of the remaining 15-17 employees will be dismissed as part of the internal "weaponization" review."We're reviewing and making sure," an administration official said. "Some of these people were burrowed deep, and we're finding them and making a determination."The intrigue: Bondi initially planned for the firings to take place earlier this week.But they were delayed as the Trump administration dealt with the internal fallout from its announcement that Jeffrey Epstein didn't have a celebrity "client list," and that his death in his New York City prison cell in 2019 was a suicide, not murder.The announcement about Epstein stunned many MAGA influencers, who say there's more to be known about the financier and sex trafficker's death — and had expected Trump and Bondi to follow through on promises to reveal salacious secrets from the government's Epstein files. It also led to a clash on Wednesday between Bondi and FBI deputy director Dan Bongino, who had promoted Epstein conspiracy theories before joining the bureau and was upset with the way Bondi handled the Epstein announcement. Inside the room: Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche was also instrumental in initially pumping the brakes on the terminations, sources said, because he wanted to be certain that the department was only letting go of staffers who were not in line with the Trump administration.Zoom out: Bondi's previous firings of prosecutors and staff have been highly controversial. Prior to entering office, her critics predicted she'd be Trump's "hatchet woman" at the Justice Department.Bondi has defended her decisions by saying she's removing prosecutors who were too political in pursuing Trump, the chief rival of then-President Biden.

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