U.S. Attorney Fires Fed Prosecutors Who Worked on Capitol Riot Cases
As the second administration of President Trump continues its crackdown on veteran federal workers deemed insufficiently loyal — or just not enthusiastic enough about enacting the Project 2025 agenda — his Justice Department is now purging federal prosecutors who made cases against Capitol rioters.
On Friday, Ed Martin, interim U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, who has espoused conspiracy theories about the 2020 election being stolen from Trump, announced the firings of approximately 30 attorneys formerly assigned to some 1,600 Capitol siege prosecutions. The terminated individuals received notice at around 5 p.m. ahead of the weekend. Meanwhile, the administration is reportedly acting to remove a number of FBI agents known to have been involved in investigations of Trump and the sacking of the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Martin’s connections to those charged in connection to Jan. 6 and later pardoned by Trump are strong: he spoke at a “Stop the Steal” rally on the night before the riot and wound up defending some participants in court. A staunch Trump loyalist, he has even referred to federal prosecutors as “[the] President’s lawyers” in a post on X. As he stepped into his new role this month, he helped facilitate various filings to dismiss pending charges against Jan. 6 defendants.
The president has effectively undone the Justice Department’s sweeping investigation into the insurrection staged at the Capitol by his supporters by issuing blanket pardons and commutations to defendants and convicted parties. He has described those jailed for their role in trying to prevent the certification of Joe Biden‘s 2020 electoral victory as “J6 hostages.”
According to The Washington Post, the D.C. attorneys purged on Friday amount to 8 percent of the office’s prosecutors. They had been hired for permanent career positions, from which they’ve now been ousted. The move was only possible because these employees were still under probationary status, having first come aboard as short-term additional hires to deal with the enormous Jan. 6 caseload — which means they have no recourse in challenging their dismissal.
The revenge against those prosecutors seemed an extension of a mostly symbolic executive order Trump recently signed to end the “weaponization of the federal government.” The order mentioned the legal travails of the Capitol riot defendants. It accused the Biden administration of “a systematic campaign against its perceived political opponents, weaponizing the legal force of numerous Federal law enforcement agencies and the Intelligence Community against those perceived political opponents in the form of investigations, prosecutions, civil enforcement actions, and other related actions.” It also promised that the Trump administration would “take appropriate action to correct past misconduct” in these areas.
Also on the chopping block this week were investigators and staffers from the team of former special counsel Jack Smith, who had prosecuted Trump. Acting U.S. Attorney General James R. McHenry fired these employees, as expected, though Smith himself had resigned from the Justice Department ahead of Trump taking office, with former Attorney General Merrick Garland then releasing his damning report on Trump’s attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 election. The case had been tossed once Trump won reelection in November of last year. House Democrats have launched a review of the dismissal of the career employees who worked with Smith.
Yet the GOP campaign of brazen retribution is unlikely to end anytime soon. Martin has already promised an investigation into the Justice Department’s application of a felony charge, obstruction of an official proceeding, in various Capitol siege cases. These charges had to be dropped last summer after the Supreme Court ruled that they had been too widely applied. In a memo to staff, Martin called it “a great failure of our office.” Like other Trump allies, it appears that he’s not content to merely wind back the past four years but would like to punish his predecessors.
CORRECTION: This original headline of this story mistakenly said that the “D.C. Attorney General” fired the prosecutors who worked on Capitol riot cases. The headline has been updated to reflect that the attorneys were fired by the U.S. attorney in D.C.
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