Invoking Article II Powers to Remove Career DOJ Employees

Beginning in 2025, the Department of Justice (DOJ) removed a series of career employees by invoking only the President's authority under Article II of the Constitution, without alleging cause and without following the statutory civil-service procedures — advance written notice, an opportunity to respond, and Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) review — that ordinarily govern the removal of tenured federal employees under the Civil Service Reform Act (CSRA) and, for Senior Executive Service members, 5 U.S.C. § 7543. In July 2025, the New York Times documented more than twenty such removals in which the termination notices cited Article II alone.

Documented individual instances include Joseph Tirrell, the Senior Executive Service official who headed the DOJ's ethics program, removed on July 11, 2025; Elizabeth Oyer, the Department's Pardon Attorney, removed in March 2025; and Maurene Comey, an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Southern District of New York, removed on July 16, 2025. In a related administrative action, the Department's Equal Employment Opportunity office took the position, in dismissing a former immigration judge's discrimination complaint in September 2025, that the federal-sector anti-discrimination statute (42 U.S.C. § 2000e-16) did not apply because the removal had been effected under Article II. Litigation over several of these removals remained pending.