U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi addresses the media during a press briefing with U.S. President Donald Trump in the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House in Washington, DC, on Friday, June 27, 2025 (Photo by Annabelle Gordon/Sipa USA)(Sipa via AP Images).
On Friday, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi dismissed her ethics adviser through a concise termination memo that did not provide any reasoning for the action, as per the document shared by the removed government lawyer himself.
Joseph W. Tirrell’s still-active bio indicates he took on the role of Director of the Departmental Ethics Office in 2023, after dedicating over 15 years at the DOJ, which included a period as acting director.
In a Monday post on LinkedIn, Tirrell shared a copy of his termination letter and also remarked at length on his firing, pointing out that he was “responsible for advising” Bondi and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, President Donald Trump’s former criminal defense attorney, “directly on federal employee ethics.”
Left: Bondi memo firing Joseph Tirrell (DOJ). Right: Tirrell’s LinkedIn post (LinkedIn/Joseph Tirrell).
Tirrell was also tasked with “ensuring that the 117,000 Department employees were properly advised on and supported in how to follow the Federal employee ethics rules,” he said.
The Departmental Ethics Office, DOJ’s website explains, is “responsible for administering the Department-wide ethics program and for implementing Department-wide policies on ethics issues,” and “provides advice and training directly to employees in the Department’s Senior Management Offices, the Justice Management Division, the Office of Public Affairs, the Office of the Federal Detention Trustee, the Office of Dispute Resolution, and the Office of Tribal Justice, and supervises the ethics programs in the remaining Department components.”
The Bondi memo informed Tirrell that he was fired as director “effective immediately.”
“Pursuant to Article II of the United States Constitution and the laws of the United States, your employment with the Department of Justice is hereby terminated,” the memo said.
On LinkedIn, Tirrell quoted Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and 18th-century conservative political philosopher Edmund Burke while stating that the oath to defend the Constitution does not include a “caveat” that allows one to cast that oath aside in difficult or inconvenient times.
“My public service is not over, and my career as a Federal civil servant is not finished. I took the oath at 18 as a Midshipman to ‘support and defend the Constitution of the United States.’ I have taken that oath at least five more times since then,” wrote Tirrell. “That oath did not come with the caveat that I need only support the Constitution when it is easy or convenient.”
“I look forward to finding ways to continue in my personal calling of service to my country. I encouraged anyone who is reading this to do the same. I believe in the words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. – ‘the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.’ I also believe that Edmund Burke is right and that ‘the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good people to do nothing,'” he added.
Bloomberg reported first on the firing, noting that Bondi had also just fired up to 20 prosecutors and staff who were involved in then-special counsel Jack Smith’s criminal Jan. 6 and Mar-a-Lago classified documents probes of Trump.
The story cast Tirrell’s firing as “separate—but potentially related—to” the other firings and as part of a broader purge within the DOJ, as Tirrell had “advised Smith’s office on ethics matters during” the Trump investigations.
Bloomberg added that Tirrell’s job entailed “reviewing and approving financial disclosures, recusals, waivers to conflicts of interest, and advice on travel and gifts for Bondi, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, FBI Director Kash Patel, and other DOJ leaders.”
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The firings reportedly came at the end of the week, instead of towards the start, after Bondi faced calls from within Trump’s MAGA base to resign or be fired herself for the way she abruptly torpedoed the prospect of further Jeffrey Epstein “files” disclosures — despite hyping up the review months earlier in a Fox News appearance and with binders for right-wing influencers.
