DOJ drug, organized crime task force chief fired

The head of a Justice Department task force dealing with organized crime and drug trafficking was fired by the Trump administration Friday, and he indicated he believes politics may have played a role.

Adam Cohen said he was fired by acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove after spending weeks working with the Trump team on a new memo concerning the task force.

“Less than 24 hours ago, I received a two-sentence memorandum addressed to me from the Deputy Attorney General (DAG). It stated that I had been removed from my Senior Executive Service position and that pursuant to Article II of the Constitution, my employment with the U.S. Department of Justice was terminated,” Cohen wrote on LinkedIn.

“It was a shock. I had met with the Acting DAG every Tuesday evening (including 3 days before) to talk about important violent crime initiatives. I had spent last weekend editing a memorandum sent out under the DAG’s signature 18 hours before my termination.”

“My personal politics were never relevant. Not until yesterday,” Cohen also wrote in the post. 

“Putting bad guys in jail was as apolitical as it gets.” 

The Justice Department on Thursday sent out a memo referencing Cohen’s task force, saying it would combine the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces with the Project Safe Neighborhoods Program. Together, the new entity would be called Operation Take Back America.

The memo, signed by Bove, also stresses the need to combat illegal immigration and instructs prosecutors to charge the most serious, “readily provable” offenses. 

Cohen spent a little more than a year working in the Biden White House as the deputy director of National Drug Control Policy, but he previously served as director of the task force in the prior Trump administration, tapped to lead it in 2018.

The Hill has reached out to the Justice Department.