Lawsuit Alleges DOJ Illegally Fired Career Official After She Refused to Facilitate a Political Favor for President Trump

September 4, 2026 - Washington, D.C. — Former U.S. Pardon Attorney Liz Oyer filed suit on Thursday against the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and Attorney General Todd Blanche, challenging her unlawful removal from federal service after she refused pressure to recommend restoring firearm rights to actor Mel Gibson – notably a personal acquaintance of President Trump – who had lost his right to own a gun following a conviction for a domestic violence crime. Democracy Forward represents Liz Oyer.

Oyer asserts that she was asked to make it appear that an independent review had concluded that Gibson should have his gun rights restored, despite her serious concerns about his history of domestic violence and the fact that he had not undergone the extensive background investigation conducted for other individuals under consideration. After Oyer declined, a senior official on then-Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche’s staff urged her to make the recommendation anyway because of Gibson’s personal relationship with President Trump. Oyer again refused. Hours after submitting a memo that did not recommend restoring Gibson’s gun rights, DOJ security officers arrived at her office with termination papers and escorted her from the building. 

As a career civil servant, Oyer was entitled to constitutional and statutory due process protections. But DOJ disregarded those protections and removed Oyer anyway, claiming that Article II of the Constitution gave the Attorney General the authority to ignore Congress’s laws. As the complaint alleges, DOJ is wrong on the law, but even if it was right, its own legal position makes Oyer’s purported removal invalid: DOJ has maintained that only the Attorney General may exercise Article II’s removal authority, yet Oyer’s termination was carried out by Blanche when he was Deputy Attorney General – not by then-Attorney General Pam Bondi.

“This case is about much more than what happened to me,” said Liz Oyer. “All Americans rely on nonpartisan civil servants to keep them safe and to uphold the law without fear or favor. I was fired because I refused to put politics ahead of my duty to the American people. My firing violated my constitutional and statutory rights, and it also jeopardized public safety. That is not how the Department of Justice is supposed to operate, and it is not how public servants in this country should be treated. If career officials like me can be fired for refusing to bend the rules to serve the president’s friends, then the message to every public servant is clear: loyalty to a politician matters more than loyalty to the Constitution. I cannot accept that.”

The lawsuit seeks an order declaring Oyer’s removal unlawful and without legal effect, reinstating her to federal service, restoring the pay and benefits to which she is entitled, and prohibiting DOJ from taking further adverse personnel action against her without the protections required by law.

“The Constitution and our civil service laws protect public servants from retaliation for doing their jobs with integrity, said Skye Perryman, President and CEO of Democracy Forward. “This lawsuit seeks to ensure that no administration can weaponize government power against career officials simply because they refused to bend to political demands. The independence, integrity, and credibility of our justice system are at stake.”

 Oyer served as U.S. Pardon Attorney from April 2022 until March 2025 and spent more than 13 years in federal service. Throughout her federal career, she received exemplary performance reviews. After challenging her removal before the Merit Systems Protection Board more than 16 months ago without receiving substantive review, Oyer is now asking the federal court to vindicate her constitutional and statutory rights.

The case is Oyer v. Blanche et al., and the legal team at Democracy Forward includes Joshua Salzman, Webb Lyons, and Elena Goldstein.

Read the complaint here.

Source: Democracy Forward