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President Trump has tapped a career government attorney who worked behind the scenes for years to root out misconduct in federal law enforcement to serve as the Justice Department’s next internal watchdog.

The White House on Friday named Don R. Berthiaume to serve as the department’s acting inspector general, a high-profile position that oversees internal investigations into fraud, waste and abuse in the department and its component agencies, including the FBI and the Bureau of Prisons.

Berthiaume is taking the oversight role at a time the Justice Department is in tumult. Prosecutors, agents and other employees have endured waves of firings and resignations as part of the Republican administration’s purge of those suspected of being disloyal to the president. The department has also dropped several high-profile criminal cases, including the indictment of New York Mayor Eric Adams, and Trump pardoned more than 1,500 people charged and convicted in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol insurrection, the most sprawling investigation in the department’s history.

Concerns deepened last month that Trump has weaponized the Justice Department to pursue investigations of his perceived enemies following the indictment of former FBI Director James Comey.

Berthiaume’s appointment, which takes effect at the end of the month, comes amid Trump’s upending of the federal government, including his firing of more than a dozen IGs on his fourth full day in office. Several of those former watchdogs filed a federal lawsuit seeking reinstatement, saying their dismissals violated the law. That case is pending.

Berthiaume, 51, worked as an attorney in the Justice Department inspector general’s office for 10 years until 2020. Among his highest-profile assignments was detailing errors in the use of wiretaps in the federal investigation into alleged ties between Russia and Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.

The last Senate-confirmed inspector general was Michael Horowitz, a former boss of Berthiaume and one of the few inspectors general who was not fired by Trump. In June, Horowitz was appointed to lead the Federal Reserve Board’s Office of Inspector General.

Created by Congress in the wake of the Watergate scandal, inspectors general serve as the first line of defense within agencies to stop waste, fraud and abuses of power. Their findings often lead to policy changes. Their investigators can also spearhead criminal probes.

Though inspectors general are presidential appointees, some have served presidents of both major political parties. Federal law requires they be hired “without regard to political affiliation and solely on the basis of integrity and demonstrated ability.”

“It’s a very important job, but Trump’s firings have created a threat environment the likes of which IGs have never seen before,” said former Justice Department inspector general Michael Bromwich, who served in the role from 1994 to 1999. “IGs need to be prepared to investigate credible allegations of waste, fraud, and misconduct. If they are too afraid to do so, IGs are no longer fulfilling their mission.”

Given the recent turmoil, Department of Justice employees could perceive the inspector general’s office as “hostile territory,” said Stacey Young, a former department attorney who founded Justice Connection, an organization supporting the agency’s employees.

“Responsible oversight of DOJ’s actions has never been more important,” Young said, “and I hope the next inspector general will exercise the independence and fortitude required to do it.”

The department’s inspector general handles some of the most explosive and politically sensitive inquiries in Washington.

In 2019, for example, Horowitz released a report faulting the FBI for surveillance warrant applications in Crossfire Hurricane, the investigation into whether Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign had coordinated with Russia to interfere in the election. The IG determined the investigation had been opened for a legitimate purpose and did not find evidence that partisan bias had guided investigative decisions.

Special counsel Robert Mueller determined that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election through hacking and a covert social media offensive and that the Trump campaign embraced the help and expected to benefit from it against Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton. But Mueller found no evidence that Trump’s campaign “conspired or coordinated” with Moscow to influence the election.

Berthiaume had a role in the inspector general’s review of Crossfire Hurricane and helped write a 2013 report on dysfunction and deep partisan divisions inside the Justice Department’s Civil Rights unit. His other work at the Office of Inspector General included exposing improper hiring of relatives and friends by senior leaders of the U.S. Marshals Service and probing a botched investigation into U.S. firearms traffickers suspected of selling grenades to Mexican cartels, according to his LinkedIn page.

Since 2023, Berthiaume has served as senior counsel to the inspector general at the Department of Housing and Urban Development, where he oversees attorneys investigating housing fraud and runs the agency’s whistleblower protection program.

Before joining HUD, Berthiaume spent three years at the Drug Enforcement Administration, managing the narcotics agency’s relationship with the Justice Department. He began his legal career prosecuting bank and credit card fraud cases at the Manhattan district attorney’s office.

Goodman and Mustian write for the Associated Press. Goodman reported from Miami, Mustian from New York.

He’s never held public office or donned a judge’s robes, but an arch-conservative Los Angeles County attorney is racing toward confirmation on the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, accelerating the once-liberal court’s sharp rightward turn under President Trump.

A competitive target shooter with a background in a cryptocurrency, Eric Tung was approached by the White House Counsel’s Office on March 28 to replace Judge Sandra Segal Ikuta, a Bush appointee and one of the court’s most prominent conservatives, who is taking senior status.

A new father and still a relative unknown in national legal circles, Tung found an ally in pal Mike Davis, a reputed “judge whisperer” in Trump’s orbit. Speaking to the New York Post in mid-March, Davis touted Tung as Ikuta’s likely successor.

The Pasadena lawyer appeared on a Federalist Society panel at the Reagan Library this year, debating legal efforts to restrain “ ‘agents’ of the left.”

“Eric is a Tough Patriot, who will uphold the Rule of Law in the most RADICAL, Leftist States like California, Oregon, and Washington,” Trump wrote on Truth Social when the nomination was announced in July.

The response from California senators was apoplectic.

“Mr. Tung believes in a conception of the Constitution that rejects equality and liberty, and that would turn back the clock and continue to exclude vast sections of the American public from enjoying equal justice under the law,” said Sen. Alex Padilla.

In the past, senators from a potential judge’s home state could block a nomination — a custom Trump exploded when he steamrolled Washington senators to install Eric D. Miller to the 9th Circuit in 2019.

Tung has been tight-lipped about his ascent to the country’s busiest circuit. He did not respond to inquiries from The Times.

A Woodland Hills native and conservative Catholic convert, Tung made a name for himself as a champion of the crypto industry and elegant legal writer, frequently lecturing at California law schools and headlining Federalist Society events.

After graduating from Yale and the University of Chicago Law School, he clerked for Supreme Court Justices Antonin Scalia and Neil Gorsuch before joining the white-shoe law firm Jones Day, a feeder to the Trump Justice Department.

Many lauded the nomination when it was first announced, including the National Asian Pacific American Bar Assn.

“Eric is a highly regarded originalist who would follow in the footsteps of Justice Scalia, for whom he clerked,” said Carrie Campbell Severino, president of the Judicial Crisis Network, a conservative legal advocacy group.

Groups on the left, including Alliance for Justice, Demand Justice and the National Council of Jewish Women, have lobbied against putting Tung on the appellate court.

If confirmed, Tung will be Trump’s 11th appointment to the 9th Circuit, a court the president vowed to remake when he first took office in 2017.

During Trump’s first term, Judge Ikuta was part of a tiny conservative minority on the famously lopsided bench, a legacy of President Jimmy Carter’s decision to double the size of the circuit and pack it with liberal appointees.

Many Trump judges ruffled feathers at first, and most have shown themselves to be “pretty conservative and pretty hard nosed,” said Carl Tobias, a professor at the University of Richmond School of Law.

Their ranks include the former Hawaii Atty. Gen. Judge Mark J. Bennett, as well as the circuit’s first openly gay member, Judge Patrick J. Bumatay.

Trump’s appellate appointees helped deliver him several controversial recent decisions, including the finding in June that Trump had broad discretion to deploy the military on American streets. Another 9th Circuit ruling this month found that the administration could all-but eliminate the country’s refugee program via an indefinite “pause.”

But they’ve also clashed sharply with the Justice Department’s attorneys, even in cases where the appellate panel ultimately sided with the administration.

That’s what the president is trying to avoid this time around — particularly with his picks headed in the west, experts said.

“People on the far right are pushing [Trump] to have people who will be ‘courageous’ judges — in other words, do things that are really unpopular that Trump likes,” Tobias said.

Tung may fit the bill. In addition to his crypto chops and avowed support for constitutional originalism, he has been an ardent defender of religious liberty and an opponent of affirmative action. He shoots competitively as part of the International Defensive Pistol Assn.

Both Tung and his wife Emily Lataif have close ties to the anti-abortion movement. Tung worked extensively with the architect of Texas’ heartbeat bill; Lataif interned for the Susan B. Anthony List, an anti-abortion policy group that seeks to make IUDs and emergency contraception illegal and opposes many forms of in-vitro fertilization.

“Emily is the epitome of grace under pressure, as was evidenced … when she and Eric had to evacuate their home during the California wildfires, only days after welcoming their first child,” Severino said. “She’s worked at the highest levels, from the White House to the executive team at Walmart, and her talent is matched only by her kindness and love for her family.”

When asked by Sen. Chris Coons of Delaware whether he believed IVF was protected by the Constitution, Tung declined to answer.

It wasn’t the only question the nominee ducked. Democratic members of the Senate Judiciary Committee accused Tung of giving only “sham answers” to their inquiries, both in chambers and through written follow-ups.

After pressing him repeatedly for his position on landmark cases including Obergefell vs. Hodges and Lawrence vs. Texas — privacy right precedents Justice Clarence Thomas wrote should be reconsidered after the fall of Roe vs. Wade — Sen. Adam Schiff pushed the nominee for his opinion on Loving vs. Virginia, the 1967 case affirming interracial marriage.

“Was that wrongly decided?” the California lawmaker asked the aspiring judge.

“Senator, my wife and I are an interracial couple, so if that case were wrongly decided I would be in big trouble,” Tung said.

“You’re willing to tell us you believe Loving was correctly decided, but you’re not willing to say the other decisions were correctly decided,” Schiff said. “That seems less originalist and more situational.”

Aug. 28 (UPI) — The White House chose Jim O’Neill, a close ally of top health official Robert F. Kennedy Jr., on Thursday to serve as acting director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, according to sources in multiple media reports.

The move comes a day after the Trump administration fired CDC Director Susan Monarez less than one month into the job. Kennedy, secretary of Health and Human Services, had pushed Monarez to resign after she disagreed with his anti-vaccine policies, but she refused.

O’Neill, who served as deputy secretary of the HHS, was selected to fill the top CDC post temporarily, unnamed sources told The Washington Post, which first reported the news. Axios and The Hill independently confirmed the appointment.

O’Neill previously served as principal associate deputy secretary of the HHS during the administration of President George W. Bush. He is also the former CEO of the Thiel Foundation, founded by Peter Thiel, a donor to President Donald Trump.

Monarez has refused to leave her job as head of the CDC and was contesting her ouster, saying only Trump has the authority to fire her. Monarez’s lawyers said Kennedy sought to remove her because she declined “to rubber-stamp unscientific, reckless directives” and she accused him of “weaponizing public health,” according to the BBC.

Four other CDC officials resigned Thursday in protest of Monarez’s firing and in defiance of Kennedy’s anti-vaccine policies.

Aug. 10 (UPI) — Tammy Bruce, the former conservative radio host and Fox News contributor who now serves as the spokesperson for the U.S. State Department, has been nominated by President Donald Trump to serve as the next deputy representative to the United Nations.

“I am pleased to announce that I am nominating Tammy Bruce, a great patriot, television personality, and bestselling author, as our next deputy representative of the United States to the United Nations, with the rank of ambassador,” Trump said on Truth Social.

“Since the beginning of my second term, Tammy has been serving with distinction as spokesperson of the State Department, where she did a fantastic job. Tammy Bruce will represent our country brilliantly at the United Nations. Congratulations Tammy!”

Bruce’s nomination will require confirmation by the U.S. Senate after its monthlong recess. It was not immediately clear who would replace her at the State Department.

Mike Walz, Trump’s former national security adviser, has been nominated to serve as the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. He testified at his Senate confirmation hearing last month, but his confirmation has since stalled. It is the last cabinet-level position that has not been confirmed by the Senate.