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WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department's recently fired pardon attorney accused the leadership of the law enforcement agency of “ongoing corruption," testifying Monday at a congressional hearing meant to showcase concerns that the Trump administration is assaulting the rule of law, abusing its power and forcing out career civil servants.
“It should alarm all Americans that the leadership of the Department of Justice appears to value political loyalty above the fair and responsible administration of justice,” said Liz Oyer, who has said she was fired last month after refusing to recommend that the gun rights of actor Mel Gibson, a supporter of President Donald Trump's, be restored.
“It should offend all Americans that our leaders are treating public servants with a lack of basic decency and humanity," she added.
The hearing represented the first time in the new Trump administration that Justice Department lawyers who were either recently fired or quit have spoken before Congress about the circumstances of their departures and their concerns about the agency's direction. It unfolded as a wave of resignations and firings have hollowed out the ranks of experienced career lawyers at the department and as Attorney General Pam Bondi and her leadership team team have signaled little patience for dissent within the workforce, including by suspending a government attorney who admitted in court that the deportation of a Maryland man to a notorious El Salvador prison was a mistake.
"The Trump administration has unleashed an all-out assault on these public servants, who are now facing attacks on their employment, their integrity, their well-being, and even their safety,” Stacey Young, a lawyer who left the Justice Department in January and is now leading a group that advocates for department employees, told lawmakers at a hearing convened by members of the House and Senate Judiciary committees.
The warnings were stark, with lawyers who spent years at the Justice Department recounting their experiences with unprecedented political pressure that they said made them deeply uneasy and obliterated the institution's norms.
Oyer decried what she described as the “callous cruelty with which DOJ leadership is treating dedicated public servants.” She testified about being abruptly fired without explanation last month, one day after refusing to endorse the restoration of Gibson’s gun rights following a misdemeanor domestic violence conviction, and being told security officers were waiting in her office to escort her out of the building.
She said Justice Department leaders tried as recently as Friday night to intimidate her into silence by dispatching armed deputy marshals to her house to deliver her a letter warning her against testifying, though she was able to forestall the arrival of the officers at her home.
“The letter was a warning to me about the risks of testifying here today. But I am here because I will not be bullied into concealing the ongoing corruption and abuse of power at the Department of Justice," Oyer said.
A Justice Department spokesperson did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment on Oyer's testimony. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche has previously dismissed Oyer's statements as inaccurate, without elaborating. The department attempted to invoke executive privilege to prevent Oyer from telling Congress about the circumstances of her departure. The legal principle broadly refers to a president’s power to keep information from the courts, Congress and the public to protect the confidentiality of presidential decision-making. Her lawyer, Michael Bromwich, said the argument that her testimony was barred by executive privilege was “completely without merit.”
Another witness was former public corruption prosecutor who resigned under protest amid the Justice Department’s dismissal of its case against New York Mayor Eric Adams. Ryan Crosswell, who was not involved in the Adams case, described the events surrounding the move to dismiss the Adams case — so that the Democrat could help Trump’s immigration crackdown — as “among the saddest in the department’s history.”
“In a properly functioning justice system, any public official wishing to avoid prison has to live by one rule of thumb: obey our nation’s laws,” Crosswell said. “And this action raised an even more chilling question: Is the Justice Department that will drop charges against those who acquiesce to a political command a Justice Department that will bring charges against those who don’t?”
He recalled how a senior Justice Department official directed Crosswell's section to identify two prosecutors willing to submit a motion seeking the dismissal of the Adams case, with the implicit offer of career advancement for those who did and potential punishment for those who did not. One ultimately stepped forward. Crosswell resigned.
“I didn’t have a job lined up or insurance lined up, but I’d rather be unemployed and not be insured than to work for someone that would do something like that to my colleagues,” he said.
