Summary:
The U.S. Justice Department dispatched armed U.S. marshals to deliver a letter warning a fired career pardon attorney about testifying to congressional Democrats, her lawyer said in a letter seen by Reuters on Monday.
“This highly unusual step of directing armed law enforcement officers to the home of a former Department of Justice employee who has engaged in no misconduct, let alone criminal conduct, simply to deliver a letter, is both unprecedented and completely inappropriate,” Michael Bromwich, a lawyer representing fired pardon attorney Liz Oyer, wrote to the Justice Department.
The Marshals were called off on Friday only after Oyer acknowledged receiving the letter, once she located it in a secondary email that she had not been using to communicate with the department’s human resources officials, Bromwich wrote.
While U.S. Marshals deputies are sometimes used to serve congressional subpoenas or protect witnesses, dispatching them to deliver a letter from the Justice Department is unusual, one former official said.
A Justice Department spokesman did not comment.
Oyer, who served as the pardon attorney during President Joe Biden’s tenure, was one of several career officials fired by Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche on March 7.
Oyer has since told U.S. media outlets that her firing came shortly after she declined to recommend restoring gun rights to actor Mel Gibson, a supporter of President Donald Trump. She was one of several Justice Department officials who testified on Monday afternoon before a hearing organized by Democrats in the House of Representatives and Senate about the Trump administration’s treatment of the Justice Department and law firms who act in cases disliked by the Republican president.
This is kinda a fantasy. That might work reliably if you are never alone. 100% never.