Trump Administration’s Justice Dept. Firings Prompt a Torrent of Legal Fights

Dozens of fired Justice Department lawyers are fighting their dismissals in court, part of a growing tsunami of legal cases arising from the Trump administration’s quest to slash the size of the government and rein in what the president and his advisers call the “deep state.”

In just three months in office, the Trump administration has carried out mass firings across the government, provoking court battles over the parameters of executive power. At the Justice Department, the dismissals have been far more targeted, going after senior career officials who have served in administrations of both parties, as well as prosecutors who worked on investigations of President Trump and the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.

More than four dozen former Justice Department employees are appealing their dismissals to administrative judges — in what some experts in employment law consider a crucial new test of long-established law that may ultimately be settled by the Supreme Court.

Last week, Adam Schleifer, a federal prosecutor in Los Angeles who was abruptly fired last month, filed legal papers challenging his dismissal. Mr. Schleifer, who handled white-collar investigations, was informed of his ouster by a brief email from the White House — an unheard-of circumstance for generations of Justice Department lawyers.

Former federal employees seeking to fight their dismissals must first file appeals with the Merit Systems Protection Board, where administrative judges weigh the reasons for the firings before issuing rulings. Those rulings, however, can be appealed to federal courts in Washington.

The merit board’s mission is to uphold civil service protections, which are intended to ensure competence and fairness in government. Federal case law has long held that civil servants may not be fired for partisan reasons, for blowing the whistle on misconduct or simply to clear out positions to fill with loyalists. The Trump administration is now testing those precedents and principles.