Prosecutors
DOJ ‘more concerned with punishing’ perceived Trump enemies than public safety, fired prosecutor’s letter says
A letter taped to the door of Michael Ben’Ary, an assistant U.S. attorney who was abruptly fired last week, said a false social media post apparently led to his termination. (Photo by Caffeinated Chihuahua, CC-PD-Mark, via Wikimedia Commons)
A letter taped to the door of an assistant U.S. attorney who was abruptly fired last week said a false social media post apparently led to his termination while he was in the middle of a terrorism prosecution.
The letter bore the typed signature of the fired prosecutor, Michael Ben’Ary, who worked in the Eastern District of Virginia, report NBC News, the Guardian and CNN.
The message warned that the political leadership of the Department of Justice was making America less safe by removing career officials from U.S. attorney’s offices and the FBI.
Ben’Ary was prosecuting a suspect in the 2021 bombing of an airport in Afghanistan that killed 13 U.S service members and 160 Afghan civilians when he was fired.
“Justice for Americans killed and injured by our enemies should not be contingent on what someone in the Department of Justice sees in their social media feed that day,” the letter said.
Ben’Ary was fired after pro-Trump commentator Julie Kelly suggested on social media that he was an ally of former U.S. Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco, who served in the Biden administration.
“One can only assume he was a big part of the internal resistance” to the indictment of former FBI director James Comey, Kelly wrote.
Comey, who was fired by President Donald Trump, has been indicted by Ben’Ary’s newly installed boss, interim U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan, for an alleged false statement to Congress. Halligan replaced U.S. Attorney Erik S. Siebert, who left his position after Trump pressured him to indict Comey.
The letter said Ben’Ary’s firing “highlights the most troubling aspect of the current operations of the Department of Justice: The leadership is more concerned with punishing the president’s perceived enemies than they are with protecting our national security.”
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