On Friday, several top prosecutors in the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington, D.C., were demoted to low-level positions, a move perceived as retaliation by the Trump administration against Justice Department officials. Those affected included prosecutors handling Jan. 6 cases and trials of militia members. The abrupt personnel changes, communicated via email by interim U.S. Attorney Ed Martin, have been viewed as an effort to undermine the office’s integrity and independence. This shift follows the dismissal of numerous newly hired prosecutors and has left the office with diminished leadership. Critics see these actions as part of a broader political agenda.
On Friday, several prominent prosecutors in the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington, D.C., were reassigned to lower-level roles focused on minor offenses, marking another move in a campaign of retaliation against Justice Department officials viewed as adversaries by the Trump administration.
Among those demoted is a prosecutor who had managed all cases stemming from the events on January 6, 2021, along with at least two others who played roles in the trials of members of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers militia, according to sources familiar with the situation who requested anonymity due to the sensitive nature of the information.
These sudden personnel shifts, communicated through a series of emails by Ed Martin, the acting U.S. attorney in Washington, represent the latest turmoil in one of the nation’s key federal prosecutors’ offices.
Prosecutors in the office view Mr. Martin’s internal actions as an overt attempt to punish, diminish, and control staff members under pressure from the White House. Degrading demotions have been a common strategy used by political appointees of President Trump to induce career prosecutors to resign.
Reassigned among those affected was John Crabb Jr., a supervisor whose experience had earned him some of the toughest responsibilities in recent years, as reported by insiders. This included overseeing the criminal trial of Roger J. Stone Jr., an adviser to Mr. Trump; prosecuting Michael T. Flynn, a former national security adviser; and managing all conspiracy cases related to the Capitol attack on January 6, encompassing those involving the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers.
Another prosecutor who faced reassignment is Greg Rosen, previously the chief of the Capitol Siege section who managed all cases tied to the January 6 events.
These reassignments of Mr. Crabb and Mr. Rosen to considerably lower-ranking positions occurred shortly after Mr. Martin executed the dismissal of over a dozen newly hired prosecutors involved with January 6 cases. Mr. Martin has also threatened Democratic officials with investigations concerning their public comments about his political allies, including Elon Musk.
Recently, Denise Cheung, the well-respected head of the office’s criminal division, resigned after she refused a request from Mr. Martin and other Justice Department officials to freeze the assets of a government contractor, citing insufficient evidence to justify such action.
Her departure left a crucial role — essential for tackling crime in the nation’s capital — vacant, further adding to the already low morale among prosecutors in the office, according to a source with knowledge of the ongoing situation.
Mr. Trump has put forward Mr. Martin, who lacks previous prosecutorial experience and has had limited engagement with the nonpartisan career prosecutors working under him, as the permanent U.S. attorney in Washington. His confirmation hearing has yet to be arranged.
The significant overhaul of much of his senior staff stands as one of Mr. Martin’s most notable actions to date; he himself was present outside the Capitol on January 6, served on a board that allocated legal fees for the rioters, and functioned as a defense attorney for some of them.
Mr. Martin’s office is additionally defending the Trump administration against a First Amendment lawsuit filed by The Associated Press, whose reporters have been excluded from covering certain presidential events. Prior to a recent hearing, he shared a post on social media identifying himself and his staff as “President Trump’s lawyers.”
One of the prosecutors recently reassigned from a supervisory role to handling minor misdemeanor cases was Jason McCullough, as noted by sources. Mr. McCullough was instrumental in investigating and prosecuting several Proud Boys, including five members of the extremist group who faced trial on charges of seditious conspiracy related to the Capitol attack and received substantial prison sentences.
Additionally, another senior prosecutor, Kathryn Rakoczy, was demoted from her role on federal cases to that of handling local cases in Superior Court. Ms. Rakoczy was part of a team that achieved sedition convictions related to January 6 against Stewart Rhodes, the leader of the Oath Keepers, and one of his top aides.
A spokesperson for Mr. Martin did not respond immediately to a request for comment.
Rather than personally informing the prosecutors of their reassignments, Mr. Martin opted to communicate the changes via a brief email sent from his phone, which notified them that they would “immediately” be moved to new divisions at significantly lower levels on the career ladder, as indicated by a screenshot shared with The New York Times.
He informed one experienced official, who was being shifted to the misdemeanors division — which handles cases involving offenses such as public intoxication and shoplifting — to hand over his current cases to colleagues in his unit.
“Let me be clear: this change is not temporary,” Mr. Martin stated.