Michael Gordon’s name never made headlines, but the cases he handled did. As a federal prosecutor in Tampa, Florida, he went after fentanyl dealers, armed robbers, and drug crews. When the Justice Department asked for volunteers to help prosecute people who attacked the US Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, he raised his hand.
For two years, Gordon tried cases against some of the most prominent defendants, and earned a promotion to senior trial counsel. He returned to Tampa with a reputation as a closer. When a politically sensitive $100 million fraud case stalled, the US attorney asked him to take it on. The indictment was returned in four weeks.
Eight days later, on June 27, Attorney General
“If ever I thought I would have been safe, it would have been the week that I got this big case charged,” Gordon said in an interview.
The ouster made Gordon one of dozens of federal prosecutors who have been fired or demoted during President
It’s all part of Trump’s push to reshape the Justice Department, including by throwing out civil rights cases — or entire offices — that contradict his administration’s priorities.
On Thursday, Gordon
Other terminated attorneys have challenged their removals at the
The Justice Department declined to comment on Gordon’s firing and DOJ representatives didn’t immediately respond outside regular business hours to a request for comment on his lawsuit.
In a Feb. 5 memo, Bondi said her department was moving to “restore integrity and credibility with the public,” but also said that no one “who has acted with a righteous spirit and just intentions has any cause for concern.”
Unlike earlier Capitol riot prosecutors removed at the start of the second Trump administration, Gordon and the two other senior prosecutors who were ousted on June 27 had been at the department for years and may have more legal protections that will allow them to fight back.
His lawyers argue the administration is using Article II to bypass civil service protections while also weakening the very system meant to challenge politically motivated firings.
Mike Howell, president of the conservative Oversight Project, said it makes “absolute sense” from “a good governance perspective” to fire prosecutors who worked on the Jan. 6 cases.
He added that it’s Bondi’s “authority to have lawyers representing her who she wants to.”
Gordon is among the first federal prosecutors to speak publicly since the department’s internal review began under Ed Martin, a Trump loyalist who represented several Jan. 6 defendants and briefly served as acting US attorney in Washington. Martin now directs the Justice Department’s Weaponization Working Group, an initiative Bondi created to investigate government officials who had been involved in prosecutions of the former president or his allies.
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Stacey Young, a former DOJ attorney and executive director and founder of Justice Connection said these “senseless terminations” are happening with no notice for the employees or, in most cases, their office leadership, leaving them “scrambling to fill the large gaping holes in their caseload and office structure.”
“DOJ leadership is making clear the ability to keep your job is not tied to your performance, your expertise, or your commitment to uphold and defend the Constitution,” she said.
During his time as part of the Capitol Siege Section in Washington, Gordon tried numerous high-profile cases including to help prosecute Richard Barnett, the Arkansas man photographed in former House Speaker
“I was doing cases this administration claims to prioritize — violent crime, fraud, public corruption,” he said. “When the president starts firing prosecutors because they did their job, not because they failed to do their job, I think the entire justice system suffers.”
For Gordon, his immediate removal may leave his colleagues in the lurch as he’s been suddenly pulled off his cases. Representative
“Your dismissal of Mr. Gordon — alongside two other career prosecutors — marks the first time that non-probationary federal attorneys were removed for their role in these prosecutions,” Castor wrote. “These actions appear petty and vindictive, aimed at punishing those who upheld the rule of law.”
It’s not just top-level prosecutors.
Patty Hartman, a career public affairs officer at the US Attorney’s Office in Washington, had overseen messaging around the Jan. 6 prosecutions and managed a public-facing website that listed every case. After the inauguration, she said one of her deputies was reassigned. Press releases about riot cases stopped. Then her own duties started disappearing.
“I was prohibited from speaking to the media,” she said. “That was my job — media strategy, response, messaging. Suddenly I wasn’t allowed to do any of it. And no one told me why.” She said there was no formal demotion, just a slow withdrawal of responsibilities. “It just slipped away,” she said.
She said that on July 7, while reviewing a press release, her computer shut off. When she tried to log back in, her credentials failed. She picked up her phone to call IT. Before she could dial, someone from the front office appeared in her doorway and handed her a letter of dismissal.
The Department of Justice also declined to comment on its firing of Hartman, who has now joined Gordon’s lawsuit.
“They didn’t tell me what I did wrong, because I didn’t do anything wrong,” Hartman said. “I was removed by people who didn’t know me or my work.” She was escorted from the building a few minutes later.
(Updates with lawsuit in seventh paragraph.)
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Sara Forden, Peter Blumberg
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