Seven top D.C. prosecutors demoted in purge by Trump U.S. attorney

Seven top leaders of the U.S. attorney’s office for Washington, D.C., were demoted to misdemeanor and entry-level intake positions Friday, the latest move in U.S. Attorney Ed Martin’s purge of career prosecutors who handled politically sensitive cases. The prosecutors are among a large group targeted by President Donald Trump and allies for “retribution” because of their roles in Jan. 6 Capitol seditious conspiracy and riot cases and others involving Trump advisers such as Stephen K. Bannon and Peter Navarro.

The seven prosecutors were notified by email Friday morning of their immediate removal from high-ranking supervisory or senior roles in the federal criminal division of the nation’s largest U.S. attorney’s office. Their jobs included overseeing or leading major public corruption, fraud and complex conspiracy cases, according to eight people who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals.

They were reassigned to misdemeanors or early case assessment screening in D.C. Superior Court, according to the people and an email Martin sent, obtained by The Washington Post from a person outside of the government. The federal prosecutor’s office in the nation’s capital also has jurisdiction over locally charged crimes.

“As you know, each U.S. Attorney must assess the needs of his office to achieve the goals set forth by the President and Attorney General,” Martin wrote in one such email. “Therefore, I am assigning you to Misdemeanors effective immediately,” he wrote, advising the recipient to report “at once” and that “the change is not temporary.”

“With professionalism, you should transfer any of your cases to members of the unit in which you previously worked and are now departed from,” wrote Martin.

Former prosecutors called the demotions unprecedented and punitive, assigning many of the most experienced and skilled career public servants in the office to positions including ones normally rotated among the rawest newcomers.

“It’s outrageous that top experienced prosecutors have been suddenly sent to the misdemeanor section, which is for new hires,” said Melanie Sloan, a former federal prosecutor in the office who is a senior adviser to American Oversight, a watchdog group. “This will endanger the safety of the residents of the District of Columbia, all so that Ed Martin and Trump can continue their vendetta against line prosecutors who were doing their job.”

The removals struck at the independence and the professionalism of the office, former prosecutors said, and sidelined leaders of several sections whose work protects the public. Those demoted have deep expertise in prosecuting cases of national security, public corruption, violent crime and child pornography, among others, and with complex federal sentencing rules. One was to begin a major health care fraud trial on Monday against a doctor charged with prescribing opioids and narcotics drugs for cash.

The demotions come as the office continues to shed prosecutors under Martin, even after Trump campaigned against D.C. as a “nightmare of murder and crime,” and Martin and administration officials have said they are prioritizing the fight against violence in the nation’s capital.

The prosecutors were identified by multiple people as:

— John Crabb, former criminal division chief at the time of the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack, perhaps the most experienced trial prosecutor in the office, who was involved in the cases against Trump advisers Stephen K. Bannon, Peter Navarro, and Roger Stone and numerous public corruption cases.

— Greg Rosen, head of the Capitol siege prosecution unit before it was disbanded and he was sidelined in January.

— Melissa Jackson and Meredith Myer Dempsey, chief and deputy chief of the federal major crimes unit, which handles firearms, drug, armed robbery, carjacking, immigration, assault and threat cases that the Trump administration has claimed to prioritize.

— Kathryn Rakoczy and Liz Aloi, deputy chiefs of a public corruption, fraud and civil rights section. Rakoczy prosecuted leader Stewart Rhodes of the far-right Oath Keepers extremist group for seeking to oppose by force the 2020 presidential transition to keep Trump in power. Aloi led prosecutions into FBI and police abuses, including two pardoned by Trump.

— Jason McCullough, who prosecuted leader Henry ‘Enrique’ Tarrio of the right-wing Proud Boys for plotting political violence against police and the congressional certification of the 2020 presidential election. He was part of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s team investigating Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, including a Russian internet trolling operation.

The seven declined or did not respond to requests for comment.

The removals slashed the ranks of the office’s top leadership, which has gone nearly two weeks without a criminal division chief. Three-decade veteran Denise Cheung resigned from that post Feb. 17 after refusing to carry out what she wrote was Martin and acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove’s demand to freeze the bank accounts of a $20 billion Biden administration environmental grant program without sufficient evidence.

Martin shortly after taking office fired Jan. 6 prosecutors who were still under probationary periods, and sought to change the subject from Trump’s pardoning all of nearly 1,600 Jan. 6 defendants, including several hundred charged with assaulting police or other violent acts that day.

By some internal estimates, more than 50 attorneys have left the office of 350 prosecutors in recent months. It has recently gained permission to fill some slots amid an administration hiring freeze. But the wholesale removal of top level prosecutors with decades of experience could be difficult to replace for Martin, who is the first head of the top prosecutor’s office in Washington never to have served as a federal prosecutor or judge in at least 50 years.