The Trump administration has reportedly reassigned more than a dozen career Justice Department officials, including those who played a central role in facilitating the FBI attack on Mar-a-Lago.
In new assignments given to at least 15 longtime officials, federal employees will remain within the Justice Department but in roles that are expected to have less influence over the department's major decisions. I will be in charge. The Washington Post reported on tuesday.
The newspaper said some officials were notified of the changes just hours after President Trump took office on Monday.
Assistant Attorney General George Toskas, who has worked in the Justice Department's national security division for nearly 20 years, is reportedly among the employees being transferred.
Toskas was involved in the August 2022 FBI investigation into President Trump's Mar-a-Lago mansion, where the 45th president allegedly did not respond to a National Archives request to resubmit White House documents from his first term in office. He was a central figure in the Ministry of Justice's promotion of this.
Tosca said the unprecedented raid on the former president's home “didn't care about the optics” during an engagement between the Justice Department and the agency's Washington field office that preceded the issuance of the search warrant. “He was furious with FBI officials.” document, Submission to court Former Special Counsel Jack Smith's classified documents lawsuit against President Trump was dismissed.
“It appears you and your leadership have gone from cautious to fearful,” Toskas reportedly wrote in an email to Stephen D'Antuono, former director of the FBI's Washington field office, after the call. . NBC News.
Toskas is said to have told D'Antuono, who initially opposed the raid, that resisting the search of Trump's residence was “outrageous in both content and form.”
President Trump, 78, argued that the raid and the subsequent criminal case against him symbolized the “weaponization” of the Justice Department by the Biden administration, and said that if he wins a second term during the campaign, he will He had vowed to abolish the ministry.
Toskas has reportedly been reassigned to the Justice Department's new Sanctuary Cities Enforcement Office.
Transferred employees may choose to leave the Department of Justice entirely rather than take on a new role.
Several of Mr. Toskas' former colleagues told The Washington Post that his experience as a counterintelligence lawyer will be missed.
“He's seen everything in both counterterrorism and counterintelligence,” a former official in the Justice Department's National Security Division told the outlet on condition of anonymity. “No one in this department knows more about prosecuting and investigating terrorists and spies than George Toskas.”
The Justice Department did not immediately respond to The Post's request for comment.
