The NYT is reporting that the head of the Justice Department’s National Security Division is “stepping down.” According to the Times, John Demers (the head of this division) would have known all about the DOJ obtaining metadata from Apple to look for the supposed leaks from the House Intelligence Committee.
WASHINGTON — John Demers, the head of the Justice Department’s National Security Division, will step down at the end of next week, according to an email he sent to his staff on Monday, a departure that was arranged months ago but comes amid backlash over investigations into leaks of classified information.
Mr. Demers was the longest-serving Senate-confirmed official from the Trump administration to remain at the Justice Department during the Biden presidency.
“You can probably imagine that I’ve stayed much longer than planned, but long ago I told the new folks that when school was out, I was out,” Mr. Demers, who has school-age children, wrote in the email, a copy of which was obtained by The New York Times. “And that’s the end of next week.”
Emphasis is my doing.
While it is common for the Justice Department to try to find out who shared classified information with the media, it is highly unusual to secretly gather records from the press and lawmakers. The prosecutors also prevented the lawyers and executives of The Times and CNN from disclosing that records had been taken, even to their newsroom leaders, another highly aggressive step.
Such moves require signoff by the attorney general. But Mr. Demers and his top counterintelligence deputies in the division would typically be briefed and updated on those efforts.
Much of the spotlight on national security cases during Mr. Demers’ three-year run focused instead on the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller, III, who ran the Russia investigation, the Justice Department’s highest profile and politically fraught national security matter.
But Mr. Demers’s ability to skirt controversy ended in recent weeks as the revelations about reporters’ record seizures and the gag orders came to light.
The Times article is trying to be careful, but Demers was a Trump appointee. And he had to have known about what was going on in DOJ. The way the article is worded, it appears that Demers is leaving just slightly ahead of a scheduled departure. Therefore, no big deal.
If that is so, why rush him out the door?
All I can think is “Trump appointee Demers at critical spot in DOJ = Demers knew about abuse of power activities at DOJ = Garland wanting to get this scandal behind him by rushing Demers out of the door.”