President Trump took his first steps at reshaping the Department of Justice by reassigning several top career officials in the agency’s national security and criminal divisions.
At least 15 experienced career staffers across several divisions were removed from their positions and reassigned, The Washington Post reported Tuesday, citing multiple people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss personnel matters.
Among those removed from the national security division was deputy assistant attorney general George Toscas, who served in the division for about two decades, the Post reported, citing three people familiar with the matter. Two people familiar with the matter said he was transferred to a newly created Office of Sanctuary Cities Enforcement in the associate attorney general’s office.
Toscas reportedly played a key role in the decision to raid Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida to retrieve presidential documents, some deemed classified, as part of DOJ special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation. Toscas was a deputy in the national security division during Trump’s first administration.
"He has seen everything in both counterterrorism and counterintelligence," a former colleague in the national security division told the Post. The former colleague spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss information that has not been made public.
"There is no one in the department who knows as much about prosecuting and investigating terrorists and spies as George Toscas," the former colleague said.
Eun Young Choi, another deputy assistant attorney general in the national security division, and Bruce Swartz, a longtime deputy in the criminal division who focuses on international affairs, also were removed from their posts and reassigned, the Post reported. They were notified of the change by email on Monday afternoon.
Mary McCord, a former DOJ official who runs the Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection at Georgetown University, told the Post the removals and reassignments were unusual because they were ordered just as Trump took office.
Many officials at the DOJ and other agencies typically leave government at the start of a new administration, but not this early. Top deputy positions in the DOJ's national security division are typically career positions.
"I don’t believe there were ever any career people fired at transition since the national security division was founded," McCord said. "One of the values of having career deputies in the national security division is consistency, institutional memory, and the relationships that they build with our national security partners."
Hours after Trump’s inauguration Monday night, the DOJ removed at least four top officials from its division that operates the nation’s heavily backlogged immigration courts, according to the Post.
Federal guidelines call for a 120-day moratorium on certain staff reassignments after Senate-confirmed agency leaders start their appointments. But at the DOJ, attorney general nominee Pam Bondi and others named by Trump for top positions are still going through the confirmation process.
James McHenry, a longtime immigration enforcement official at the DOJ, is acting attorney general. McHenry served during the Biden administration as the DOJ’s chief administrative hearing officer, a position that oversaw the department’s administrative judges, according to the Post. During Trump’s first administration, he directed the Executive Office of Immigration Review.
Newsmax reached out to the White House and DOJ for comment.