Fired Jan. 6 Prosecutor Suing Trump Goes to Personal Injury Firm

A former federal prosecutor who claims he was fired for his work on cases against Jan. 6 Capitol rioters has taken a job at a South Florida personal injury firm.

Tampa-based lawyer Mike Gordon, whose prosecution efforts led to charges against Jan. 6 Capitol rioters later pardoned by President Trump, started at Fort Lauderdale-based Kelley Uustal as a partner on Nov. 3, he said in an interview with Bloomberg Law. Gordon’s move to private practice comes as he presses a lawsuit against the Trump administration alleging wrongful termination in spite of positive performance reviews as a government lawyer.

“I really identified myself with my job,” Gordon said. “When that was taken away from me, I was adrift.”

Mike Gordon

Kelley Uustal

Gordon served as an Assistant US Attorney in Tampa from 2017 to his termination in June of 2025, according to his complaint.

From 2021 to 2023, he volunteered to serve as a senior trial counsel in the Capitol Siege section of the Washington DC US Attorney’s Office. Gordon’s efforts led to charges against individuals who were present at the US Capitol on Jan. 6, including Ray Epps, Eric Munchel, and Richard Barnett, who was photographed in Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s office and later pardoned by President Trump.

He said he was blindsided by the termination, thinking that the administration had ceased Jan.6-related firings after a series of demotions and terminations soon after Trump’s second term began. Gordon said he tried to work “behind the scenes” to get his job back, asking senior leaders at the US Attorney’s Office in Tampa to vouch for him to Main Justice, he said.

“It was my hope that before my name was public that maybe the higher-ups in Tampa could call their colleagues in DOJ in DC and say can we walk this back,” Gordon said. “Once it was clear that that was not going to be successful, I turned my attention to finding the next job.”

More than 200 Justice Department employees have been fired under the second Trump administration, according to Justice Connection, a group that supports current and former department lawyers. Roughly 4,500 department staffers have taken buyouts under the administration’s deferred resignation offer. By September, a third of senior career leaders at the Justice Department had left their jobs, Bloomberg Law previously reported.

Since filing his lawsuit, Gordon has joined the ranks of lawyers criticizing what they see as the politicization of the Justice Department under Trump, including several of the lawyers representing him in his lawsuit. Many on his legal team have been targeted by Trump in speeches and punitive executive actions.

The lawyers include Abbe Lowell, who left Winston & Strawn to launch his own law firm to represent Trump-targeted individuals.

One of Lowell’s clients is also representing Gordon—Mark Zaid, a whistleblower lawyer also suing Trump for stripping his security clearances. The team also includes Norman Eisen, the lawyer who served as co-counsel to the House Judiciary Committee during Trump’s first impeachment and was referenced as a “bad” person by Trump in a March speech to the Department of Justice.

Gordon’s lawsuit was filed on behalf of himself and two other fired department employees. It asked for him to be reinstated to his job and awarded monetary damages and backpay from the government. More important than financial compensation is a court declaration that the DOJ violated his due process rights and the Administrative Procedure Act, Gordon said.

“There are civil service protections that were put in place in the wake of Watergate that were designed to ensure that we have a non-political civil service,” he said. “I’m pressing that lawsuit and will continue to do so because the department flatly ignored the law, and that can’t be allowed to stand.”

New Role

Kelley Uustal was launched in Fort Lauderdale in 2008 and now has 15 lawyers, including Gordon.

The firm last month won a $20 million jury verdict in Broward County, Florida against Johnson & Johnson over allegations by the family of a physician that the drugmaker’s talc products gave him mesothelioma. The firm brought a lawsuit this year against Disney claiming a Hulu documentary exposed identities of military operatives that resulted in the torture and murder of an Afghan military contractor for the US.

Kelley Uustal has also represented celebrities. For hip hop artist Flo Rida, the firm won $82 million verdict against Celsius Holdings, claiming that the energy drink maker violated the conditions of an endorsement deal.

John Uustal, who co-founded the firm, said he doesn’t view his new partner’s brush with politics as a liability in Florida’s conservative climate, given the severity of the cases his firm brings.

“When I’m picking jurors in a trial, whether I end up with people who are progressive Democrats or independents or MAGA Republicans, almost all of them understand there’s no doubt that our clients aren’t faking,” he said.