Justice fires the fraud-section prosecutor who withdrew from the Adani case
The Justice Department removed Andrew Tyler, an acting assistant chief in the fraud section of the Criminal Division, months after he filed a motion to withdraw from the Gautam Adani case that departmental leadership had moved to dismiss; his dismissal letter stated he was being removed under Article II of the Constitution.
What happened
CBS News reports that Andrew Tyler, an acting assistant chief in the fraud section of the Criminal Division, was removed on Tuesday, with two sources saying it was over allegations of ethical violations and without providing further details. After the report was published, a source with knowledge of the matter disputed those claims, saying Tyler was never accused of any wrongdoing or given a reason for the termination, and that the firing was retaliation over his decision to withdraw from the Adani case. His dismissal letter, like many others department employees have received, stated he was being removed under Article II of the Constitution. NBC News, which first reported the termination, records that he was one of two prosecutors who asked to withdraw two days after Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General Trent McCotter moved in May to dismiss the case against Adani. CBS records that Tyler is the second federal prosecutor fired this month amid disagreements with senior department officials over a high-profile criminal case.
Why it matters
One of the two career prosecutors who withdrew from a dismissal that no career prosecutor on the case signed has now been removed from the department, and the letter doing it cites the President's constitutional authority rather than any finding about him. The department put no reason in the letter beyond Article II, and the accounts of why conflict: two sources describe alleged ethical violations, while another says he was never accused of wrongdoing and calls the firing retaliation for the withdrawal. The sequence is legible to everyone still inside the section either way — he stepped back in May and was out in September.