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WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department has reassigned key senior officials across multiple divisions as part of a leadership shakeup ahead of the expected confirmation of President Donald Trump’s pick for attorney general, Pam Bondi, multiple people familiar with the matter said Tuesday.
Among those moved to other positions inside the department is Bruce Swartz, the longtime head of the Justice Department’s office of international affairs, which handles extradition matters, according to two people who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss personnel moves. As many as 20 or so officials in all have been reassigned.
Another affected official is George Toscas, a veteran deputy assistant attorney general in the department’s national security division who, in addition to helping oversee major terrorism and espionage investigations, has also been a key supervisor in politically charged probes over the last decade including into Hillary Clinton’s handling of classified information and Trump’s hoarding of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate.
A Justice Department spokesman did not immediately return a call seeking comment.
The reasons for the moves were not immediately known. Though it is common for a new administration to appoint its own political hires at the top of the Justice Department, it is not standard for career lawyers to be reassigned. They serve the department across administrations and typically retain their positions even when control of the department changes hands.
The moves could foreshadow additional changes given Trump’s keen interest in the Justice Department, which investigated him in his first term through a special counsel and then indicted him twice last year in separate cases that never reached trial and were withdrawn after Trump’s November election win. A key veteran prosecutor in the classified documents case, Jay Bratt, retired earlier this month.
Trump’s fury over the investigations has raised alarms that he could seek to use the law enforcement powers of the department to pursue retaliation against his adversaries.
On his first day in office Monday, he pardoned, commuted the prison sentences or vowed to dismiss the cases of all of the 1,500-plus people charged with crimes in the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol riot, including people convicted of assaulting police officers. The reassignments were first reported by the Washington Post.
