A senior Justice Department official claims she was fired after she refused a Trump administration request to restore Mel Gibson’s gun rights when he was appointed ambassador to Hollywood.
Gibson is not legally permitted to carry guns after he pleaded no contest to battering his former girlfriend in 2011. Domestic violence offenders are barred from owning weapons.
Elizabeth Oyer, the Justice Department’s former pardon attorney, was told Gibson’s lawyers reached out to Trump Justice Department pick Emil Bove, arguing for his gun rights to be restored, the New York Times reported.
She was told to ‘add Mel Gibson to a memo’ she had been working on with her team for more than a fortnight, assessing candidates ‘worthy of consideration’ to have their gun rights restored.
From an initial 95 names suggested for consideration, her team had whittled the final batch of eligible candidates to just nine when Gibson’s name was thrown into contention.
The letter cited his ‘special appointment from the President’ and explained that he’d made a number of successful movies.
But Oyer said recommending Gibson would go against her principles – in part because of his conviction, but also because she had not been given adequate time to assess his claim.
Two weeks prior to Gibson’s lawyers sending the formal request, Trump had appointed him ‘special ambassador to a great but very troubled place, Hollywood, California.’
Elizabeth Oyer, the Justice Department’s former pardon attorney, was told Gibson’s lawyers reached out to Trump Justice Department pick Emil Bove, arguing for his gun rights to be restored
Gibson is not legally permitted to carry guns after he pleaded no contest to battering his former girlfriend in 2011. Domestic violence offenders are barred from owning weapons
Pictured: Mel Gibson in 2024 action thriller Boneyard
Gibson was one of few Hollywood stars to support Trump during his presidential campaign.
‘Giving guns back to domestic abusers is a serious matter that, in my view, is not something that I could recommend lightly,’ Oyer told the publication.
She responded in a similar fashion to the email from her Justice Department superiors, and received a call from an official in deputy attorney general Todd Blanche’s office several hours later.
According to her recollection, Oyer was asked: ‘Is your position flexible?’
She said it was not.
‘He then essentially explained to me that Mel Gibson has a personal relationship with President Trump and that should be sufficient basis for me to make a recommendation and that I would be wise to make the recommendation,’ she claimed.
Oyer told the official she would have a think about her position, but after a sleepless night racked with fear, she reiterated that she would not make the recommendation.
‘I literally did not sleep a wink that night because I understood that the position I was in was one that was going to either require me to compromise my strongly held views and ethics or would likely result in me losing my ability to participate in these conversations going forward,’ she said.
She was told to ‘add Mel Gibson to a memo’ she had been working on with her team for more than a fortnight, assessing candidates ‘worthy of consideration’ to have their gun rights restored
Gibson was one of few Hollywood stars to support Trump during his presidential campaign
Two weeks prior to Gibson’s lawyers sending the formal request, Trump had appointed him ‘special ambassador to a great but very troubled place, Hollywood, California’
Oyer said she explained that the attorney general did not necessarily need her recommendation or approval to get Gibson’s gun rights back.
Hours later, she received a call from her staff urging her to cut an unrelated meeting short and return to the office.
When she arrived, she was handed a letter from Blanche terminating her employment.
Two security officers waited as she boxed up her belongings, and she was escorted out of the building.
Oyer recalls telling a trusted colleague: ‘I can’t believe this, but I really think Mel Gibson is going to be my downfall’ before she was ultimately sacked.
Her decision to deny the request was largely because ‘there are real consequences that flow from people who have a history of domestic violence being in possession of firearms,’ she said.
A Justice Department official refuted Oyer’s allegations, and said her termination was not linked to the Gibson decision.
Her termination was the latest instance of the Trump administration removing or sidelining career Justice Department officials, who typically keep their positions across presidential administrations.
