America First Legal Demands the DOJ Investigate Associate Deputy Attorney General Austin Evers for Going After President Trump
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, America First Legal (AFL) filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Justice’s (DOJ) Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR), demanding an investigation into Associate Deputy Attorney General Austin Evers for improperly being involved in matters relating to the investigation and subsequent prosecution of former President Donald Trump.
Mr. Evers is a former Obama political appointee and Democrat party operative. He was the Executive Director of American Oversight from 2017-2022. American Oversight targeted Republicans and under Mr. Evers’ leadership, the group investigated many conservatives, including President Trump, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, and Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’s wife, Ginni Thomas.
On August 8, 2022, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) raided former President Donald Trump’s home, Mar-a-Lago, in Palm Beach, Florida. An indictment was issued on June 8, 2023. Documents disclosed by the Department to AFL demonstrate that Mr. Evers was involved in discussions, briefings, and litigation concerning the Mar-a-Lago raid and may have been involved in discussions directly relevant to the eventual issuance of an indictment.
D.C. Bar rules and American Bar Association standards designed to prevent biased lawyers from prosecuting cases suggest that Mr. Evers should never have been involved in these matters. Even a cursory review of Mr. Evers’ pre-appointment public statements and activities demonstrates substantial bias against Mr. Trump.
There is significant evidence indicating that Mr. Evers is fatally tainted by bias against former President Trump, rendering his participation in matters related to Mr. Trump generally, and the Mar-a-Lago raid, pre-indictment discussions, and any post-indictment activities in particular, a violation of clear and unambiguous legal obligations and professional standards. Yet, he heavily involved himself in the Department’s actions related to that raid without recusing himself. This stands in stark contrast to the decisions of his colleagues, Acting Assistant Attorney General Peter Hyun and Associate Deputy Attorney General Emily Loeb, who—according to documents obtained by AFL in litigation—recused themselves from the Department’s Hunter Biden investigation.
Accordingly, AFL requests that OPR investigate Mr. Evers for intentional violations and/or reckless disregard for clear and unambiguous legal obligations or professional standards, professional misconduct, and abuse of the Department’s authority.
Statement from America First Legal’s Dr. Dan Epstein:
“Austin Evers had the right as a private citizen to criticize President Trump and to use his abundant resources to investigate the former President. But when he entered public service, Mr. Evers’s advocacy against President Trump was mandated to end. It appears that it didn’t. Partisan, political, or personal considerations have no place in our system of justice. Evers had an obligation to recuse himself from Trump-related matters. As we show, many of Mr. Evers’s DOJ colleagues recused themselves from work relating to prosecutorial targets, given their own prior personal or professional activities. Evers failed to do so. Today, America First Legal does what the Department of Justice, and Mr. Evers in particular, should have done. We detail for the public the record of Mr. Evers’s bias against President Trump and enumerate the substantial activities Mr. Evers engaged in, upon entering government service, concerning matters related to the Mar-a-Lago raid and leading up to the eventual indictment of former President Trump. There is no place for bias in our system of justice. The DOJ’s Office of Professional Responsibility must take immediate action on this case of bias and ensure that criminal defendants are entitled to their presumption of innocence,” said Dan Epstein.
Read the complaint here.
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