DOJ Leader Removed After Bondi Saw Front Office Biden Portrait (1)

The Justice Department removed the acting national security head from his post hours after Attorney General Pam Bondi saw a portrait of former President Joe Biden continuing to hang in the division’s front office, according to people familiar with the situation.

Bondi took the step during the week of Feb. 10, just weeks after Devin DeBacker was elevated to serve as the acting chief of the national security division. DeBacker, a former associate White House counsel during the first Trump administration, was also in line to be the division’s permanent No. 2 official. He was reassigned to his prior role as chief of the foreign investment review section.

His demotion came the same day Bondi saw the portraits of Biden, former Vice President Kamala Harris, and Biden Attorney General Merrick Garland still hanging, the people familiar with the situation said.

Bondi previously said she personally took the portraits down after first entering the national security division’s front office at DOJ headquarters. But the link between the portraits and DeBacker’s reassignment hasn’t previously been reported.

The episode highlights how Bondi has sought to overhaul the leadership and priorities of the department in the first months of the new Trump administration. Bondi has proclaimed the department to be President Donald Trump’s lawyers, and her tenure has coincided with the removal or reassignment of a growing number of career officials.

The Justice Department declined to comment.

Bondi, whose first day leading the department was Feb. 5, appeared to recount the experience in a Fox News interview.

“I went up on the seventh floor, which is the national security division. The entire floor is a SCIF, so no one can get in there,” Bondi said. “So I was able to get the code, open the door, and I look on the wall and see President Biden, Kamala Harris, and Merrick Garland’s paintings still hanging.”

“I personally took all three photos down,” she added. “I put them in front of someone who said to me, ‘Oh well, maintenance is really slow here. I said, ‘well it took me about 30 seconds to get them off the wall.’”

Sue J. Bai replaced DeBacker as the DOJ’s acting head of national security while John Eisenberg, Trump’s pick to permanently lead the division, awaits Senate confirmation.

The shakeup comes amid greater upheaval inside the senior ranks of the department’s national security program. In recent months, the department has reassigned career officials with oversight of such areas as terrorism, cyber threats, and intelligence.

They include Melissa MacTough, who oversaw the intelligence office, and Brad Wiegmann, the former head of the office of law and policy.