WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department fired a top national security prosecutor amid criticism from a right-wing commentator over his work during the Biden administration, further roiling the prominent U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia after the in recent weeks, according to people familiar with the matter.
Michael Ben’Ary, who was chief of the office’s national security section, was fired Wednesday just hours after Julie Kelly, a conservative writer and activist, shared online that he previously worked as senior counsel to Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco during the Biden administration, two people familiar with the matter said. The people spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss personnel matters.
Kelly’s post speculated that Ben’Ary may have been part of the “internal resistance” in the office to the recently charged case against FBI Director . But Ben’Ary played no role in the Comey case, one of the people said.
His termination comes days after the firing of another prosecutor in the Alexandria, Virginia, office: Maya Song, the people said. Song had served as the top deputy to former U.S. Attorney Erik Siebert, who was nominated by President Donald Trump but pushed out last month amid pressure from the administration to bring charges against New York Attorney General in a mortgage fraud investigation.
Song had also worked in Monaco’s office during the Biden administration, a connection that’s been noted by Kelly as well. Trump targeted Monaco in a recent social media post in which he called on Microsoft, her current employer, to fire her.
The firings are the latest in a that have thrown the department into turmoil and raised alarm over political influence over the traditionally independent law enforcement agency and the erosion of civil service protections afforded to federal employees.
While U.S. attorneys generally change with a new president, rank-and-file prosecutors by tradition remain with the department across administrations. The Trump administration, however, has fired prosecutors involved in the and lawyers who worked on , among others.
Ben’Ary worked for the Justice Department for nearly two decades and was promoted under both Republican and Democratic administrations. He was currently prosecuting the case against a suspected planner of that killed 13 American service members and roughly 170 Afghan civilians during the chaotic .
Song was fired Friday shortly after the Trump administration installed a new U.S. attorney, Lindsey Halligan, a former White House aide who had been one of Trump’s personal lawyers but had not previously served as a federal prosecutor. Halligan was put in the top job after Trump publicly pressed Attorney General in an extraordinary social media post to move forward with against some of his political opponents.
Days after that post, Halligan secured the indictment of Comey on allegations that he lied to Congress when he said he had not authorized anyone else at the FBI to be an anonymous source in news reports about a particular investigation. Comey, who is expected to make his initial court appearance next week, has denied any wrongdoing and said: “My heart is broken for the Department of Justice.”
Minutes after the indictment was filed, Comey’s son-in-law, his position as a national security prosecutor in the same office, telling Halligan in a one-sentence letter that he was leaving the Eastern District of Virginia “to uphold my oath to the Constitution and the country.”
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