Attorney General Pam Bondi removed the Justice Department’s head of ethics, Joseph Tirrell, who has been linked to former special counsel Jack Smith during his investigation into President Donald Trump.
“Pursuant to Article II of the United States Constitution and the laws of the United States, your employment with the Department of Justice is hereby terminated, and you are removed from federal service effective immediately,” the letter states, adding that Tirrell has 30 days to appeal the action.
“Until Friday evening, I was the senior ethics attorney at the Department of Justice responsible for advising the Attorney General and Deputy Attorney General directly on federal employee ethics,” Tirrell wrote in a LinkedIn post. “I was also responsible for the day-to-day operations of the ethics program across the Department.”
He added that his “public service is not over,” and his “career as a Federal civil servant is not finished.”
Tirrell was a key figure in approving Smith’s acceptance of $140,000 in pro bono legal fees, Bloomberg Law reports. His separation from the DOJ may be connected to similar firings of employees with ties to Smith.
According to the Departmental Ethics Office’s website, the office is responsible for “administering the Department-wide ethics program and for implementing Department-wide policies on ethics issues” and “provides advice and training directly to employees in the Department’s Senior Management Offices, the Justice Management Division, the Office of Public Affairs, the Office of the Federal Detention Trustee, the Office of Dispute Resolution, and the Office of Tribal Justice, and supervises the ethics programs in the remaining Department components.”
