On Friday, the Justice Department fired at least three prosecutors involved in criminal cases related to the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol insurrection. These include two attorneys who worked as supervisors of the Jan. 6 proceedings at the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Washington, as well as a third attorney who handled cases stemming from the assault.
While one of the letters sent by Attorney General Pam Bondi to the fired lawyers said that they were “removed from the federal service effective immediately,” none of them were given a reason for the move. Bondi and the DOJ have yet to comment on the matter. According to insiders, the dismissals represent yet another decision made by the federal administration against those who were working on cases concerning the assault on Capitol Hill, as well as a further erosion of the Justice Department’s independence from the White House.
In recent months, DOJ leadership has also fired employees who worked on the cases against Trump and demoted a number of supervisors, in what has been seen as an attempt to purge the agency of lawyers deemed insufficiently loyal.
Trump pardoned or commuted the sentences of all of the Jan. 6 rioters on his first day back in the White House, releasing people convicted of seditious conspiracy and violent assaults on police.
During his time as acting U.S. attorney in Washington, Ed Martin in February demoted several prosecutors involved in the Jan. 6 cases, including the lawyer who headed the Capitol Hill Siege Section. Others included two lawyers who helped convict Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes and former Proud Boys national president Enrique Tarrio of seditious conspiracy.
In January, then-Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove ordered the firing of about two dozen prosecutors who had been hired for temporary assignments in support of the Jan. 6 cases and were moved into permanent roles after Trump’s presidential victory in November. Bove said he would not “tolerate subversive personnel actions by the previous administration.”
