Report flags 'dramatic departure from past practice' that makes Trump's DOJ 'vulnerable'
Donald Trump's Department of Justice is engaging in something that's considered a dramatic departure from the past, according to a new report.
Bloomberg Law exclusively reported on Sunday that the "Trump Justice Department has assigned politically appointed newcomers decisionmaking power over sensitive matters, including ethics, employee discipline, and release of information sought by inspectors general and Congress, stripping these authorities from the longstanding oversight of a senior career official."
"Acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove, in a Jan. 27 memo reviewed by Bloomberg Law, handed the authorities to two of his staffers — one a former criminal defense lawyer for President Donald Trump and another a 2021 law school graduate," according to the outlet's reporting this weekend.
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The report further claims that the "two political appointees will be able to make final determinations on 'adverse personnel actions and bar referral matters,' ethics recusals and waivers, nominee financial disclosures, and a variety of other delicate professional responsibility decisions that have historically been handled instead by the department’s highest-ranking career official."
"The political appointees will also have decisionmaking authority regarding referrals from the Office of Special Counsel, which investigates federal employee whistleblower complaints; inspector general requests for access to grand jury material; and disclosures to Congress, including asserting privilege or appearing in response to lawmaker subpoenas, the memo said," it reads. "Delegating such weighty tasks to political aides — both first-time DOJ employees — without a career official’s involvement is a dramatic departure from past practice."
The report also notes that transferring this authority away from the individual who oversaw it before "can make the department vulnerable to controversies akin to Bove’s handling of the New York Mayor Eric Adams dismissal."
"Instead, the delegations are now reserved for Jordan Fox and Kendra Wharton, the memo said. Fox, who is Bove’s chief of staff and former law firm colleague, is a 2021 graduate of Seton Hall University Law School," according to the report. "Wharton is an associate deputy attorney general who graduated law school in 2014 and previously worked at the same law firm as Todd Blanche, Trump’s nominee to be deputy attorney general. Wharton went on to join Blanche and Bove on Trump’s defense team, serving in a more junior capacity in the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case."