The top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, Rep. Jamie Raskin, is calling on top Trump administration officials to halt the purge of career prosecutors at the Department of Justice over their involvement in investigating and working on Jan. 6-related cases and to reinstate them to their positions.
In letters exclusively obtained by NBC News and sent this morning, Raskin called on Attorney General Pam Bondi, FBI director nominee Kash Patel and acting U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Ed Martin for a commitment to undoing the actions and to provide relevant information to the committee.
Raskin demanded that Bondi immediately halt the purge of career officials at the DOJ and FBI who were “wrongfully terminated simply for doing their jobs” in investigating Jan. 6 cases. He said firing them is a “blatantly political violation of the civil service laws of the United States” and “badly undermines public safety and national security.” The Maryland congressman said he wants Bondi’s commitment by next week that the purge is stopped and that all fired personnel are reinstated to their roles.
Similarly, Raskin said in a letter to Patel, who hasn’t yet been confirmed by the Senate to be FBI director, that he wants his assurance by next week that he will also put an end to the termination of FBI employees and to reinstate them.
“By removing and threatening career personnel, Trump Administration officials are hampering the Bureau’s ability to conduct critical investigations involving terrorism, public corruption, transnational organized crime, cybersecurity, and white-collar criminal offenses,” he wrote to Patel.
And in a letter to Martin, Raskin slammed his firing of more than a dozen career federal prosecutors from the U.S. attorney’s office in D.C. on what the lawmaker said was “an explicitly political basis,” violating federal law and constitutional protections. These individuals, Raskin said, “prosecuted the violent rioters who tried to prevent the peaceful transition of power” and instead of honoring them, he said Martin betrayed their service to America to try to “rewrite the clear history” of Jan. 6.
Raskin requested that Martin send by Feb. 20 all communications he’s had with the Trump White House as well as Jan. 6 defendants and prosecutors. The congressman also said he wants to know whether Martin reviewed these prosecutors’ personnel files or met with them before firing them.
The FBI declined to comment, while the DOJ, the U.S. attorney’s office in D.C., Patel and the White House didn’t immediately respond to NBC News’ requests for comment.
