“There is significant evidence indicating that Mr. Evers is fatally tainted by bias against former President Trump.”
A conservative legal advocacy group has filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Justice, alleging a top DOJ official involved in the 2022 raid on former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home had an improper bias against the former president and should have recused himself.
America First Legal (AFL), an organization founded by former senior White House adviser Stephen Miller, filed a complaint on Thursday with the DOJ’s Office of Professional Responsibility, alleging improper bias on the part of Associate Deputy Attorney General Austin Evers.
The complaint states Mr. Evers was a political appointee at the U.S. State Department during President Barack Obama’s administration. After the Obama administration, he went on to work as the executive director of American Oversight, a nonprofit organization that repeatedly investigated the Trump administration and other conservative figures over alleged abuses of power.
Mr. Evers returned to government work in 2022 after the start of the Biden administration and was appointed as an associate deputy attorney general in July of 2022, days before the Mar-a-Lago raid.
AFL alleges Mr. Evers was involved in discussions, briefings, and litigation concerning the Mar-a-Lago raid and may have been involved in discussions leading to special counsel Jack Smith’s indictment against President Trump nearly a year later on June 8, 2023.
The federal law enforcement raid at the Palm Beach, Florida, resort, which President Trump used as a home and office space, was done to seize sensitive documents in the former president’s possession. Mr. Smith’s June 2023 indictment alleged President Trump willfully retained national defense records and made false statements and other efforts to conceal those records from federal authorities. President Trump has insisted he had the right to keep the documents under the Presidential Records Act and that he’d declassified the documents.
“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,” AFL said in a press statement. “Yet, he heavily involved himself in the Department’s actions related to that raid without recusing himself.”
NTD News reached out to the DOJ, but a spokesman said the department would decline to comment on the complaint.
By Ryan Morgan
