Shots and resignations in the Department of Justice in the first weeks of the Trump administration

The United States Department of Justice is staggering tonight of shooting and resignations in the first weeks of the Trump administration. A main leader describes a workplace of “confusion” and “fear.” The Department of Justice exercises enormous power through the FBI and federal prosecutors. It is essential for the fight against crime and national security. But even more, the Department of Justice is where Americans seek the rule of law. President Trump has been the objective of his investigations during the Biden administration. Now, Trump says, his administration is cleaning a justice department corrupted by politics. Fear has silenced many in the department. But two prosecutors we met, decided to speak.

Sara Levine: The Department of Justice is under attack. They come after people who want to maintain the laws that exist. And that should be scary for everyone.

Sara Levine and Sean Brennan were federal prosecutors in the greatest investigation of the Department of Justice, the attack on the Capitol, until they were fired by the Trump administration on January 31.

Scott Pelley: Why were you fired?

Sara Levine: Because I did my job. I mean, it’s really so simple, I entered. I followed the facts. I followed the law. And they fired me because I did exactly what I was supposed to do.

Be Brennan: I think we know what we did was correct. Without repentance, absolutely none.

Sara Levine: What we did was justice.

‘Justice’ for 140 police officers wounded on January 6, 2021. Levine and Brennan were hired, about a year and a half ago, to process cases of the riots.

Scott Pelley: And how many of his cases was the defendant acquitted?

Let Brennan: None.

Sara Levine: None.

Scott Pelley: What tells you what?

Sara Levine: The evidence was overwhelming.

Overwhelming but last month, tThe president forgave Even the most violent convicts, whom he calls with another name.

President Trump (January 20, 2025, at the Oval Office): So this is January 6, these are the hostages, approximately 1,500, for forgiveness. Complete forgiveness.

Not long after the ink was dry, the termination letters arrived at the Department of Justice. The letters rewrited the story, calling the prosecution itself, In the words of the president, “a serious national injustice.”

Sean Brennan: anyone who has seen videos of what happened on January 6, knows that the serious national injustice was not the decision to prosecute protesters. The serious national injustice has been the Department of Justice that turns its back on those agents of the law, to the members of the Congress and all the affected victims.

Peter Keisler: This was a decision to protect people who had committed serious crimes because they were doing it in support of the president’s re -election.

To understand the Department of Justice, we went to someone who knows it well. Peter Keisler served the Republican presidents and he himself was head of the Department of Justice in 2007 as interim general attorney for George Bush.

Peter Keisler: I don’t think anyone believes that these people would have been forgiven if they had involved exactly in the same acts, but had assaulted the Capitol, for example, in opposition to the President and their policies.

Scott Pelley: What message does the president’s forgiveness send?

Peter Keisler: He says he can commit some very serious crimes, but he does it as an identifiable defender of the president’s agenda and the political interests, it is possible that he can go down. And I think it was designed to send that message.

A message that also reached the FBI. Trump’s interim attached attorney general, Emil Bove, demanded the names of approximately 5,000 FBI personnel who had tracked Capitol’s uproar in 50 states. He has encouraged agents to inform each other. And the He directed the shot of eight of the high executives of the FBI, saying in part …

Scott Pelley: “I do not believe that the current leadership of the Department of Justice can trust these FBI employees to help implement the president’s agenda faithfully.” Is that the work of the FBI to implement the president’s agenda?

Peter Keisler: No. I mean, the president obviously has the prerogative to establish the general policies of the administration. But both the FBI and the largest department of justice of which it is part of its duty towards the law.

Scott Pelley: But someone could say: “Well, is this what always happens? A new president enters, the former people are annihilated and new people are designated.”

Peter Keisler: Not at all. This is really unprecedented and it is important to understand why. The appointed politicians are eliminated and replaced by presidents all the time. This is the main leadership layer. But under them in the center of the government are public officials. These are people who have developed experience for often decades of experience working between the administrations of both parties. And whose works are protected by civil service laws that have been in books since the end of the 19th century.

The new leader of the Trump Department of Justice is the Attorney General Pam Bondi, former Attorney General of Florida. She is a loyal to Trump who says that the prosecutions of the president of the Department of Justice were motivated by politics.

Pam Bondi (January 15, 2025, during a confirmation audience): They went to Donald Trump. They went after him. Actually, starting in 2016, they went to their campaign. They have launched countless investigations against them. That will not be the case if I am the Attorney General. I will not politicize that position. I will not address people simply for their political affiliation. Justice will be administered evenly throughout this country.

Bondi and Bove rejected our interview application.

PAM Bondi (January 15, 2025, during a confirmation hearing): If confirmed, I will fight every day to restore trust and integrity to the Department of Justice and each of its components. Party, the weapon will have gone. The United States will have a level of justice for all.

That said, Bondi launched a review to analyze those of the Department of Justice that were involved in the prosecution of Donald Trump, including his accusation in the Electoral case 2020 And his accusation for supposedly hiding classified documents at home.

Peter Keisler: I don’t think anyone who has been seeing the last four weeks can say that they are taking politics, politics outside the process of application of the law. On the contrary. They are involved in the same politicization and weapon that claim they are trying to eliminate.

Peter Keisler, former interim attorney, was republican to Trump’s first mandate, when Keisler changed to Independent.

Scott Pelley: Some people who saw this interview say: “You were always against the president. Of course you are saying these things.”

Peter Keisler: Well, it is true that I have never voted for Donald Trump. My concern for the use of the application of the law to achieve political purposes, that is one of the reasons why I have never voted for President Trump. But at the end of the day, people can support any candidate they want. I hope almost everyone agrees as a basic issue that our criminal justice system is not used as a policy tool to reward friends and punish personal enemies.

That appearance of ‘gratifying friends’ has triggered the greatest rupture so far. It implies an accusation of bribery against the mayor of New York, Eric Adams, a position that Adams denies. Although he is a Democrat, Adams agreed to help Trump’s deportation. This month, Emil Bove ordered New York prosecutors to drop the prosecution of Adams bribes, in part, so that Adams could “… dedicate all attention …” to “… illegal immigration and violent crimes … “

Peter Keisler: The directive to withdraw the positions against Mayor Adams was one of the most naked political documents in the Department of Justice that I have seen. If Mayor Adams had been an opponent of the president’s immigration agenda, then he would have been prosecuted. But because he says he wants to help advance in the president’s immigration agenda; It is not processed.

Bove’s order caused a revolt. Danielle SassoonThe main prosecutor in Manhattan, resigned. She refused to sign a motion to dismiss the case because it was, in her words, “… there is no other reason to influence Adams decision making …” Bove replied, criticizing the case, writing: “You They have also tensioned, without success, to suggest that some type of quid pro quo arises from my directive. Bove ordered prosecutors in Washington to sign and there, six more resigned, for a total of eight.

Scott Pelley: And how serious the public should take those resignations?

Peter Keisler: Oh, it is an intermittent red light. No one renounces these works easily. But people have renounced because they are ordered that they perform little ethical acts that believe they are contrary to their responsibilities.

Scott Pelley: Looking towards the future, what is Tripwire, in his opinion, which would indicate that the country is in serious problems?

Peter Keisler: Well, I think we are already there. I think that when you have an important prosecution of dismissed political corruption because someone agreed to become a political ally of the president, you know, that Tripwire has already been stumbled.

Last week, Emil Bove explained his motion to dismiss a federal judge. There is still no decision. Last Thursday, for the thinnest of the margins, the Senate confirmed the new director of the Trump FBI, Kash Patel. In a message to the office, Patel said his commitment is “justice” and “the rule of law.” He is a former prosecutor dedicated to Trump. Patel has written books for children with a ‘King Donald’ who is protected by a magician named Kash.

Sara Levine: At this moment we are really in a place where we are staggering on the edge.

For former prosecutors Sara Levine and Sean Brennan, speaking publicly was not an easy decision. But in the end, they believe that silence can be the greatest threat to justice.

Be Brennan: I don’t think I can live with myself if at least I do not try to help people to understand why what we have seen happening in the Department of Justice in recent weeks is so critical and why not only it is about putting at risk to all Americans individually. It really puts our constitutional government structure at risk.

Sara Levine: The thing is that, as prosecutors, we have an ethical obligation that is higher than any other lawyer. Because what a prosecutor can do is that we can take away someone’s freedom. And what they are doing is leading people who are willing to follow the law. And that is terrifying because our democracy falls apart if there is no law and order to accompany it.

Produced by Aaron Weisz, Ian Flickinger and Pat Milton. Associated Producer, Georgia Rosenberg. Transmission Associate, Michelle Karim. Edited by Michael Mongulla.