Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche says Trump investigation staff fired or resigned
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said Thursday that every Justice Department or FBI employee who worked on criminal investigations into President Donald Trump has been fired, resigned, or took early retirement.
Objective Facts
Every Justice Department or FBI employee who worked on the criminal investigations into President Donald Trump has been fired, resigned, or took early retirement, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said Thursday. Blanche said during a fireside chat at CPAC that "There is not a single man or woman at the Department of Justice who had anything to do with those prosecutions," and at the Justice Department, that number amounts to "over 200" people. FBI Director Kash Patel fired a dozen employees involved in the classified documents investigation as part of a wider internal investigation into actions taken in Jack Smith's investigation. In some cases, the employees received termination letters that said they couldn't be "trusted" to "faithfully" implement Trump's agenda because of their involvement in his prosecutions. Two unnamed agents sued the bureau last week, arguing they were fired despite exemplary performance records because they had been assigned to work on cases involving the president.
Left-Leaning Perspective
Left-leaning outlets and critics characterized Blanche's remarks as a troubling boast about systematic purging of DOJ and FBI officials. Blanche, described as Trump's former personal attorney now serving as the number two official at the Justice Department, publicly boasted the administration has purged federal employees from the DOJ and FBI involved in investigating Trump, declaring that Director Patel has "cleaned house" at the FBI. Legal experts and observers condemned Blanche's statements as evidence of authoritarian governance, with anti-Trump national security lawyer Mark Zaid announcing he would use Blanche's remarks as evidence in ongoing litigation challenging the unlawful political firing of federal employees. Left-leaning critics emphasized constitutional and rule-of-law concerns. Former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance stated "Firing prosecutors because of cases they were assigned to work on is just unacceptable," calling it "anti-rule of law; it's anti-democracy." A former Justice Department employee said "The way in which these employees have been terminated seems like a pretty clear violation of the Civil Service Protection Act and general constitutional due process protections." Mike Gordon, fired from DOJ after prosecuting the biggest January 6 cases, said "This is just essentially public corruption." The left frames this as evidence of a broader pattern dismantling institutional safeguards. The Brennan Center reports that since January 20, the second Trump administration has systematically dismantled the DOJ's internal controls that help ensure compliance with professional and ethical standards, with courts grappling with consequences as the DOJ presents questionable legal positions. Critics note that no evidence has surfaced publicly that anyone connected with Jack Smith's investigations was motivated by partisan bias against Trump or was influenced by Biden political appointees.
Right-Leaning Perspective
Right-leaning outlets and Blanche himself framed the personnel actions as necessary correction of institutional bias. Blanche argued that "what happened for the past four years was so bad and so awful," with a "big part of that" being "what happened with the Department of Justice and the FBI and the weaponization that we saw." Blanche emphasized that President Trump has said, 'I am the president, and if you work in the executive branch, you work for me.' Right-wing commentary treated Blanche's statements as justified corrective action. RedState's coverage noted that Blanche blamed "past administrations, Republicans included, who chose not to challenge the Deep State and blithely accepted the status quo," with Blanche stating "past administrations have just resigned themselves to putting up with partisan actors within the Department of Justice. We do not." The outlet quoted Blanche saying "Director Patel has cleaned house there too," stating "There isn't a single man or woman with a gun, federal agent still in that organization that had anything to do with the prosecutions." Right-leaning outlets presented the removals as restoring institutional independence. Bloomberg Government reported that more than 200 people involved in Trump prosecutions have either left or were forced to leave the department, with Blanche pushing back on critics who said the DOJ has moved slowly to go after Trump opponents. The framing emphasizes that these were necessary steps to end what they characterize as partisan misuse of the DOJ.
Deep Dive
Since the second Trump administration began, the Justice Department and FBI have gutted several offices whose work touched on high-profile cases, including the two prosecutions of Trump led by former special counsel Jack Smith, both of which were dropped before Trump returned to office in January 2025. The staffing changes represent a marked departure from historical norms: rank-and-file prosecutors by tradition remain with the department across presidential administrations and are not punished by virtue of their involvement in sensitive investigations. What each perspective captures and what it obscures: The left correctly identifies that the removals are unprecedented in scope and explicitly tied to prior involvement in Trump investigations—the letters to fired employees specifically cited their roles in investigating Trump—raising genuine constitutional questions. However, the left provides limited engagement with the Trump administration's stated rationale about institutional reform and restoring DOJ independence from perceived political weaponization during the Biden administration. The right, conversely, frames the removals as necessary correction of real institutional problems, but largely avoids directly addressing the constitutional and rule-of-law concerns raised by removing career employees explicitly because of their prior prosecutorial duties. CNN has not independently verified Blanche's claim of "over 200" departures. Critical questions remain unresolved: The Justice Department and FBI have not publicly detailed the full scope of staffing changes referenced by Blanche. The lawsuits now in motion will test whether such removals violate constitutional due process and statutory civil service protections. Additionally, the Trump DOJ has faced repeated defeats in court on other staffing matters, with Bondi and Blanche floundering in court as losses piled up on their aggressive assertions of executive power. The institutional implications are significant: The mass departures have cost the DOJ "generations of institutional knowledge it may never get back," according to advocates for displaced employees.