By Steve Neavling
The Trump administration has fired at least three federal prosecutors who worked on criminal cases stemming from the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, according to two people familiar with the matter, the Associated Press reports.
The dismissals include two supervisory attorneys who helped oversee the Capitol riot prosecutions at the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington, along with a line prosecutor involved in charging individual defendants, the sources said. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss personnel decisions.
One of the prosecutors received a termination letter signed by Attorney General Pam Bondi. The letter did not explain the decision but cited “Article II of the United States Constitution and the laws of the United States,” according to a copy reviewed by The Associated Press. The removal was effective immediately.
A spokesperson for the Justice Department declined to comment Friday evening.
The firings are the latest example of how the Trump administration has sidelined or removed career officials involved in prosecuting the Capitol attack, deepening concerns about political interference at the Justice Department and the erosion of long-standing civil service protections.
Several career supervisors have already been demoted, including attorneys who worked on cases against former President Donald Trump, part of what many legal observers view as a purge of officials seen as disloyal to the administration.
After Trump issued sweeping pardons for all Jan. 6 defendants on his first day back in office, including people convicted of assaulting police and plotting seditious conspiracy, legal experts began warning that retaliation against prosecutors might follow.
Earlier this year, Ed Martin, who was appointed interim U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, reassigned multiple prosecutors working on high-profile Jan. 6 cases. That included the former head of the Capitol Siege Section, as well as two attorneys who helped win convictions against Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes and former Proud Boys chairman Enrique Tarrio.
In a separate move in January, then-acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove fired around two dozen prosecutors who had been hired on temporary assignments to assist with the Capitol riot cases. Many of them had recently been made permanent employees following Trump’s election victory in November.
