Bondi Fires Three Senior Jan. 6 Riot Prosecutors from DOJ (1)

The Trump administration terminated at least three attorneys Friday who led prosecutions into Jan. 6 Capitol riot defendants, three people familiar with the moves said.

Two supervisors in the Capitol siege section in the Washington US attorney’s office and an assistant US attorney who handled numerous insurrection trials received notices from Attorney General Pam Bondi that their termination was effective immediately, said the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity to share sensitive personnel matters.

These are the latest disciplinary actions taken against DOJ attorneys who brought criminal charges against the mob storming the Capitol in support of Trump’s bid to overturn the 2020 election results. On Inauguration Day this year, Trump pardoned some 1,500 of those convicted related to the insurrection, including those who assaulted police officers.

Unlike the more than 12 Jan. 6 prosecutors fired in January, the three targeted Friday weren’t recently-hired as temporary employees, which the then-US attorney for DC used to provide legal justification for the earlier removals. The latest batch also didn’t appear to have any affiliation with Special Counsel Jack Smith’s team that indicted Trump.

One of theformer Capitol siege supervisors was currently serving as an overseas attache within DOJ’s criminal division, while the other returned to his prior post as a prosecutor in the D.C. office. The third terminated employee had returned to a different federal district from which he’d been on detail in D.C.

Bondi didn’t provide a reason, citing “Article II of the United States Constitution and the laws of the United States,” according to a copy of one of the termination memos reviewed by Bloomberg Law.

A spokesman for Bondi declined to comment.

The firings come as Trump’s initial interim US attorney for Washington—a former Jan. 6 defense lawyer, Ed Martin—now oversees a weaponization working group out of DOJ headquarters.

The massive investigation of the early 2021 attack, launched by DOJ officials appointed in Trump’s first term, wound up necessitating dozens of prosecutors from across the country who took temporary details to support the D.C. US attorney’s office. Many of those attorneys remain employed at DOJ.