DOJ cleanup: more than a dozen prosecutors who investigated Jan. 6 fired

The cleanup of the Justice Department under the Trump administration continues. This time, more than a dozen prosecutors who investigated the events of Jan. 6 for the U.S. attorney's office in Washington were fired this Friday.

According to a report in the New York Times, Emil Bove, the second-in-command at the department, explained that the firing was due to "wrongful hiring" by the Biden administration.

According to the NYT, Bove, who has been in charge of overseeing firings and transfers since the presidential inauguration, said the previous administration illegally hired prosecutors in recent months for permanent positions, citing the department's interim hiring program that was largely intended to assign cases related to Jan. 6.

Bove, according to the NYT, said the hires "inappropriately hindered" acting U.S. Attorney Ed Martin from fulfilling his "obligation to faithfully implement the agenda that the American people elected President Trump to execute."

Likewise, the official detailed that the new DOJ leadership would not tolerate "subversive personnel actions” and explained that vacant positions would be used to make "merit-based" hires.

The move comes in the same week that James McHenry, the acting attorney general, fired more than a dozen prosecutors who worked for special prosecutor Jack Smith, who led several prosecutions against Trump.

Trump's critics have claimed that these firings represent political revenge against his political opponents, especially those who investigated him during the last presidential campaign. However, his allies argue that the president is doing what is necessary to restore institutionality within the DOJ to end the "instrumentalization of Justice."