The US attorney general, Pam Bondi, has fired a justice department official for making a vulgar gesture to members of the National Guard deployed in Washington DC on her way to work.

The employee, Elizabeth Baxter, was a paralegal at the department’s environmental defense section, according to a memo to her published by the New York Post, which first reported Friday’s dismissal.

“Based on your inappropriate conduct towards National Guard service members, your employment with the Department of Justice is hereby terminated, and you are removed from federal service effective immediately,” Bondi wrote in the memo.