At least seven senior leaders in Washington, D.C.'s federal prosecutors office have been demoted to jobs handling misdemeanors or other low-level matters, in the latest move by President Trump's U.S. Attorney to overhaul the office that oversaw the massive prosecution relating to the 2021 U.S. Capitol attack, reports the Associated Press. Interim U.S. Attorney Ed Martin's move to reassign the prosecutors has shocked lawyers in the office, which was already shaken by the firings of other lawyers who handed Jan. 6 cases. Among those being reassigned include several prosecutors who handled or oversaw politically sensitive cases involving the Jan. 6 riot and Trump allies Peter Navarro and Steve Bannon. The prosecutors were told in an email that they were being reassigned to work on misdemeanor cases or moved to the Early Case Assessment Section, which evaluates new cases and handles court proceedings like arraignments in Superior Court.
“Let me be clear: this change is not temporary,” Martin told the attorneys, saying that the misdemeanor staff "does important work and needs assistance.” Those demoted include Greg Rosen, chief of the Capitol siege section, which prosecuted the cases stemming from the Jan. 6, 2021, riot. Others include two lawyers who helped win seditious conspiracy convictions against Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes and former Proud Boys chairman Enrique Tarrio. Another supervisor targeted was John Crabb, who participated over the years in multiple high-profile case, including the prosecution arising from the attack on the diplomatic compound in Benghazi. Martin, a conservative activist who echoed Trump's bogus 2020 election fraud claims, has described federal prosecutors as the “president's lawyers" and forced the head of his office's criminal division to leave after a dispute over a directive in which she scrutinized the awarding of a government contract during the Biden administration.
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