Justice Department ethics chief fired by Pam Bondi

The Justice Department’s top ethics official, Joseph Tirrell, was dismissed Friday by Attorney General Pam Bondi as part of a widening purge of department personnel linked to the prosecutions of January 6 defendants and President Donald Trump, per Bloomberg

Tirrell, a former Navy officer and longtime federal ethics lawyer, was removed via a short termination letter from Bondi with no reason given, the report stated.

Tirrell had previously advised Special Counsel Jack Smith on ethics matters related to Trump’s prosecution, Bloomberg says. Within the department, Tirrell was responsible for counseling top officials, including Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel, on ethics matters such as recusals, financial disclosures, and conflicts of interest. He also oversaw ethics compliance for the DOJ’s workforce of over 117,000 employees and previously served as an ethics attorney at the FBI.

Following his termination, Tirrell addressed his departure in a public statement posted to LinkedIn.

“My public service is not over, and my career as a Federal civil servant is not finished,” he wrote. “I took the oath at 18 as a Midshipman to ‘support and defend the Constitution of the United States.’ I have taken that oath at least five more times since then. That oath did not come with the caveat that I need only support the Constitution when it is easy or convenient.”

He added, “I believe in the words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., ‘the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.’ I also believe that Edmund Burke is right and that ‘the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good people to do nothing.’”