By Sarah N. Lynch
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Trump administration has removed the U.S. Justice Department's senior career ethics official from his post, according to a person familiar with the matter, in an action likely to stoke fears about whether the department will be able to remain insulated from political pressures and conflicts,
Bradley Weinsheimer, a department veteran who was appointed as associate deputy attorney general during President Donald Trump's first term, was ordered to report to a newly-created working group on "sanctuary cities" that is based out of the Associate Attorney General's office, the source told Reuters.
Weinsheimer declined to comment about the reassignment when asked earlier on Monday by a Reuters reporter.
A Justice Department spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Weinsheimer is among dozens of top career officials who have been reassigned to that office and other posts from areas across the department, including the Civil Rights, National Security, Criminal and Environment and Natural Resources divisions, as well as the Executive Office for Immigration Review.
His re-assignment comes after the Trump administration also removed Corey Amundson, the senior career official who ran the section in charge of public corruption and election fraud investigations and reassigned him to sanctuary cities. That section must be consulted on all politically-sensitive investigations, according to Justice Department rules.
Reuters reported earlier on Monday that Amundson had resigned from the Justice Department. His resignation letter did not address his reassignment.
Several current and former Justice Department veterans told Reuters that the removals of Amundson and Weinsheimer together raised serious alarm bells for the department.
Without apolitical career officials in those roles, they said they feared the Trump appointees will be able to launch politically-charged investigations and run roughshod over the department's ethics rules to avoid conflicts of interest.