WASHINGTON — At least seven top prosecutors inside the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia — including some involved in Jan. 6 prosecutions — were demoted to entry-level positions by the new Trump-appointed interim U.S. attorney, multiple officials told NBC News.
Ed Martin, a conservative activist with no prosecutorial experience who President Donald Trump named interim U.S. attorney and who has been nominated to take over the critical office on a permanent basis, informed several supervisors that they had been demoted to handle misdemeanor cases or join a unit that initiates lower-level local cases, according to several multiple sources and messages seen by NBC News.
The lead prosecutors on both the Oath Keepers seditious conspiracy case and the Proud Boys seditious conspiracy case, among the highest-profile Jan. 6 prosecutions, were demoted to work cases in D.C. Superior Court, multiple sources said. So was the chief of the Capitol Siege Section, which was disbanded when Trump took office and pardoned more than 1,500 Jan. 6 defendants.
“They really rubber roomed a lot of people,” one federal law enforcement official said.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Washington is unique in that it handles both federal crimes in U.S. District Court as well local crimes in Superior Court. Demoting leaders on the federal side of the office to the lowest level of the Superior Court team, one law enforcement source said, “is the biggest f— you that you can receive,” noting that many of these supervisors worked misdemeanors when they first started out as “baby prosecutors.”
Amongst the prosecutors demoted, multiple current and former law enforcement officials said, were Greg Rosen, who was in charge of the Capitol Siege Section.
“Greg Rosen, who ran the Capitol Siege Section, was, quite literally, the best boss and team leader I’ve ever seen,” former Assistant U.S. Attorney Brendan Ballou said in a statement to NBC News. “Like a great football coach, he brought the best out of every player. That Ed Martin is trying to demote or humiliate him speaks to the smallness of Martin and his agenda.”
Jonathan Allen contributed.
