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Attorney General Pam Bondi has fired the Justice Department’s top ethics official, Joseph Tirrell, intensifying concerns among legal experts and former department staffers that a systematic purge of internal watchdogs is underway under President Donald Trump’s administration.
Tirrell, who served as director of the Departmental Ethics Office, announced his dismissal in a public LinkedIn post Friday, sharing that Bondi had signed a letter notifying him of his immediate termination.
“The letter stated that my employment with the Justice Department ‘is hereby terminated, and you are removed from federal service effective immediately,’” Tirrell wrote. He added that despite his removal, his commitment to public service remains unwavering. “I took the oath at 18… 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.”
Tirrell, a longtime public servant who began working at the DOJ’s ethics office in 2018 and became director in 2023, also served over a decade at the FBI.
According to a DOJ source, the firing is part of a larger trend: an ethics adviser to Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche has also been dismissed, and the Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR)—the department’s internal watchdog—currently has no named leader.
Jeffrey Ragsdale, OPR’s previous chief, was removed earlier this year. The office’s website no longer lists a successor, raising questions about oversight within the department.
Charles Work, a former assistant U.S. attorney, said the purge strips prosecutors of essential support. “For prosecutors who encounter issues or orders to violate their professional obligations, there is no more recourse. There is nowhere to turn for help,” he said.
Former DOJ Civil Rights Division attorney Stacey Young called the actions a direct attack on ethical accountability. “Brad Weinsheimer? Pushed out. Jeff Ragsdale? Removed. Joseph Tirrell? Fired,” she said. “It takes chutzpah to tell senators at your confirmation hearing that you’ll consult with career ethics officials — and then fire them.”
Weinsheimer, another senior DOJ ethics official, resigned after being reassigned to the department’s newly created sanctuary cities working group earlier this year.
Since returning to office, President Trump’s administration has taken sweeping action against DOJ staff who previously worked on investigations involving him. Within days of the inauguration, over a dozen employees who had worked with former special counsel Jack Smith were dismissed.
Last week, more than 20 additional DOJ staffers — including federal prosecutors, paralegals, and communications personnel — were removed, sources told CBS News.
Among them was Patty Hartman, a senior public affairs official for the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia. “The line that aimed to keep the Justice Department’s work separate from the White House is very definitely gone,” Hartman told CBS.
Critics have said the firings threaten the Justice Department’s independence and its commitment to nonpartisan law enforcement. The dismissals follow a series of controversial moves, including Trump’s mass pardoning of roughly 1,500 defendants convicted for their roles in the January 6 Capitol assault.
