Attorney General Pam Bondi fires top Justice Department ethics official

Attorney General Pam Bondi has fired one of the top career officials tasked with advising her and other senior Justice Department officials of their ethical obligations, an official familiar with the dismissal confirmed to ABC News Monday.

Joseph Tirrell on Monday took to LinkedIn to post news of his termination, including a photo of his termination notice which provided no reasoning for his firing.

“Until Friday evening, I was the senior ethics attorney at the Department of Justice responsible for advising the Attorney General and Deputy Attorney General directly on federal employee ethics,” Tirrell said in the post. “I was also responsible for the day-to-day operations of the ethics program across the Department.”

The removal letter from Bondi mirrors that of letters sent to multiple other DOJ employees fired in recent weeks, including at least 20 officials who supported former special counsel Jack Smith’s team in his prosecutions of President Donald Trump.

Tirrell did not respond to a request for comment from ABC News. A DOJ spokesperson declined to comment when contacted by ABC News.

Tirrell’s post outlined an extensive resume in public service, beginning with his time as a United States Naval Officer before he joined the FBI in 2006 in various ethics-related posts.

In 2023 he was appointed as the director of the DOJ’s Ethics Office, which advises employees of the rules governing financial disclosures, conflicts of interest and instances mandating recusal. among others.

It’s unclear what specifically prompted Tirrell’s firing, though several former officials noted that he was leading the office when Smith disclosed, after departing the DOJ, that Smith had accepted $140,000 in pro bono legal services as a “gift.” The disclosure noted that Tirrell specifically signed off on the gift as being in compliance with applicable ethics laws and regulations.

Tirrell’s dismissal also comes amid several other removals of officials who worked on Smith’s team, as well as at least two more career prosecutors who worked on the investigation into the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Both investigations have been under the microscope of former interim D.C. U.S. Attorney Ed Martin since he joined the main Justice Department to lead its so-called “Weaponization Working Group.”