More Interim Leaders Take Reins Across Trump Justice Department

The Trump administration has appointed dozens of new interim leaders throughout the Justice Department bureaucracy, including moving a federal prosecutor in Washington to head the Antitrust Division and tapping Florida’s solicitor general to run the Office of Legal Counsel.

The names of acting personnel, who will begin implementing an aggressive DOJ-focused agenda in the new administration’s early days and may end up staying on in senior roles once Senate nominees are confirmed, were distributed internally in a memo obtained by Bloomberg Law. They come after the announcements Monday of James McHenry as acting attorney general and Emil Bove as acting deputy AG.

Omeed Assefi, a counsel in the DOJ Civil Rights Division when Trump was last in office who more recently was an assistant US attorney in Washington, is now the interim assistant attorney general of the Antitrust Division. Assefi will lead that division while awaiting Senate consideration of Trump nominee Gail Slater, the document shows.

Patrick Davis, a former Trump DOJ official and staffer for Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), is acting head of the legislative affairs office; Henry Whitaker, Florida’s solicitor general, is now in charge of OLC, which plays a significant role in advising the executive branch in thorny legal matters; Sarah Harris is the acting solicitor general, following experience arguing before the high court as a partner at Williams & Connolly; and Chad Mizelle, who Trump previously announced as DOJ’s chief of staff, dual-hatting as the acting associate AG.

Derek Maltz is the new interim head of the Drug Enforcement Administration, coming out of retirement after serving 28 years at DEA previously.

The memo also shows a number of existing DOJ officials getting promoted to temporarily helm major offices, such as Devin DeBacker now running the National Security Division—which awaits a Trump nomination. DeBacker was a Trump DOJ official who stayed on as chief of NSD’s foreign investment review section during the Biden administration.

The Civil Rights, Criminal, Environment and Natural Resources, and other offices are being led by people who were existing senior career officials in the office, the document states.

However, Bloomberg Law reported Monday that Toni Bacon, a federal prosecutor in Miami, will become the new head of the Criminal Division, replacing career official Brent Wible.