On March 8, the Justice Department purged top national security lawyers and the chief of the department’s professional misconduct office.
Deputy assistant attorneys general at the National Security Division of the Justice Department, Melissa MacTough and Brad Wiegmann, were terminated from their positions. MacTough led the intelligence office of the division, and Wiegmann managed the law and policy office. Both had decades of experience at the Justice Department.
Their departures leave significant gaps in national security expertise at the department. “There’s literally no one at home. The lights are off,” said one former Justice Department official.
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To the benefit of malicious actors in the Justice Department, Jeffrey Ragsdale, counsel for the Office of Professional Responsibility, which investigates employee misconduct. He had over a decades’ worth of experience at the office.
The list goes on. Adam Cohen, who also has a wealth of experience, was removed as director of the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces. Tara Twomey, who was in charge of the Executive Office for US Trustees, was purged as well.
“I served under five Presidents and 11 Attorneys General over my 26.5 years of service for the Department of Justice (DOJ). My personal politics were never relevant. Not until yesterday,” he wrote in a LinkedIn post.
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Cohen accurately refers to the politicized nature of these mass purges. There is no evidence that these employees engaged in misconduct, were performing their tasks insufficiently, or did anything that would warrant their firing.
