Fired US Justice Department official warns of political purge over Jan. 6, 2021 riot cases

ISTANBUL

A former US Justice Department official has raised alarms over what she describes as a purge of employees tied to the prosecution of the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol rioters, warning of growing political interference within the agency, according to a report by CBS News on Thursday.

Patty Hartman, a longtime public affairs specialist who worked for the FBI and the US Attorney's Office in Washington, DC, said she was abruptly fired on Monday. She is the fourth person involved in Jan. 6-related cases to be dismissed in recent weeks.

“There used to be a line – a very distinct separation between the White House and the Department of Justice,” Hartman told CBS. “That line is very definitely gone.”

Under reforms following the 1970s Watergate scandal, a virtual wall was erected between the White House and the department, discouraging the presidency from seeking to influence federal law enforcement. Since taking office, Trump has violated those guidelines and urged the department to go after his political opponents as well as those who pursued cases against the Jan. 6 rioters.

Hartman, who spent 17 years at the department, was not a prosecutor but helped communicate developments in more than 1,500 criminal cases related to the Capitol assault. She said she does not consider herself political and emphasized that her role was to serve the public and the department’s mission.

Her termination came without warning, she said. Hartman told CBS she was working on a press release when her computer shut down unexpectedly and an agency official delivered a letter signed by Attorney General Pam Bondi, the department’s head, notifying her of her dismissal.

“They’ve thrown all of the rules out the window,” she told CBS. “Like we are falling into a crevasse or an abyss, and I really, truly hope that the country can pull out of it.”

The firings follow Trump’s second inauguration and the appointment of Ed Martin, a former defense attorney for Jan. 6 defendants, as acting US attorney in Washington. Several prosecutors involved in the cases were also let go shortly afterward, in what Hartman characterized as retaliation.

The Trump administration has downplayed the violence and damage caused by the 2021 Capitol siege, the reports said, and on the day of Trump’s inauguration, pardoned nearly all of the defendants, even those who pleaded guilty to assaulting Capitol police officers, calling them “political prisoners.”

In a social media post following her dismissal, Hartman warned that the country is “driving straight into an abyss that holds no memory of what democracy is, was, or should be.”

She added that those in power “use the Constitution as a weapon to suit their own ends,” and suggested that her firing is part of a broader effort to dismantle institutional safeguards.

Hartman said she is considering legal action over what she described as a termination without due process.