WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi fired a Department of Justice official on Friday for making a vulgar gesture to members of the National Guard deployed to Washington, D.C., on her way to work.
“Today, I took action to terminate a DOJ employee for inappropriate conduct towards National Guard service members in DC,” Bondi posted on X, responding to a New York Post story about the firing.
She said people who disrespect law enforcement will no longer work at the department.
The fired employee, Elizabeth Baxter, was a paralegal at the department’s environmental defense section, according to a memo to her from Bondi that was published by the New York Post, which first reported the dismissal.
Reuters could not immediately contact Baxter, who the newspaper said had raised her middle finger and uttered vulgarities at National Guard members on August 18 and later disparaged the troops.
President Donald Trump deployed hundreds of National Guard members to the streets of Washington this month, declaring a crime emergency and announcing a temporary federal takeover of the city’s police department.
In June, Trump, a Republican, ordered Marines and National Guard troops to Los Angeles and has threatened to send troops and federal officials to Chicago, against the wishes of Democratic governors of California and Illinois.
The president has portrayed the nation’s capital as a city awash in crime, although Justice Department data shows violent crime hit a 30-year low last year in Washington, a self-governing federal district under the jurisdiction of Congress.
The U.S. government also dispatched agents from numerous agencies, including the FBI, to patrol the capital’s streets.
Following a legal challenge filed by the city’s attorney general, the Trump administration negotiated a deal with Mayor Muriel Bowser, a Democrat, to keep Police Chief Pamela Smith in charge of the department’s operations.
While some, including Democrats, have criticized the move to deploy National Guard to the capital, Trump and allies have pointed to lower crime in the district to show success of the deployment.
“DC will soon be a CRIME FREE ZONE, in only 14 days, far faster than scheduled,” Trump posted on Truth Social on Thursday.
(Reporting by Jasper Ward; Editing by William Mallard)
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