A combination of file photos show U.S. President Donald Trump in the White House in Washington, DC, U.S. April 9, 2018 and former FBI Director James Comey on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., June 8, 2017
Major cases at the Department of Justice are "hobbled by” turmoil as “more than a half-dozen prosecutors have been demoted or pushed out of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia,” the Washington Post reported Saturday.
The “turmoil” comes amid the fallout from the DOJ’s revamped effort to prosecute former FBI director James Comey. A federal grand jury in the Eastern District of North Carolina last month indicted Comey on two counts related to an Instagram post by the former FBI director that depicted the phrase “86-47.” Prosecutors allege Comey’s post can reasonably be construed as a threat against the president. As the Post notes,”most legal analysts say [the charges] have little merit and stem primarily from President Donald Trump’s animus toward the former FBI chief.”
Meanwhile, as the DOJ pursues Trump’s vendetta, insiders say a “key prosecutorial office” remains “understaffed and weakened.”
According to the Post, citing 10 current and former prosecutors, several DOJ officials “have voluntarily decamped or scrambled to find new jobs, fearful they could be asked to work on cases that violate their principles.”
“Major cases, including one involving a terrorist attack in Afghanistan, have been hobbled by the turmoil,” the Post reports.
In that case, former Eastern District of Virginia national security chief Michael Ben’Ary was pushed out amid the trial of Mohammad Sharifullah, whom Trump himself has described as “the top terrorist” behind the 2021 attack at Kabul airport’s Abbey Gate. According to the Post, after his firing, Ben’Ary “left a scorching letter taped to his office door, warning that his abrupt departure could hurt the Abbey Gate trial.”
In April. A jury “[convicted] Sharifullah of a terrorism offense, [but] deadlocked and declined to find him guilty of playing a deadly role in that specific attack,” the Post reports. Deputy director the National Security Section for the Eastern District of Virginia, Troy Edwards, had also been on the Sharifullah case. As the Post notes, Edwards, who is Comey’s son-in-law, left the department following the former FBI director’s indictment.
“As the Justice Department gears up for the second prosecution of Comey, the costs to the department of the president’s crusade are mounting,” the Post reports. “The shock waves rippling through the Justice Department underline the high price of the president’s single-minded pursuit of his adversaries to its personnel, resources and mission.”