J.P. Cooney, a former federal prosecutor who was fired by President Donald Trump after helping to investigate him in two criminal probes, will run for the House as a Democrat in Virginia, he announced Wednesday.
Cooney, who was a top deputy to special counsel Jack Smith, is running in a district that would be radically redrawn under a proposal being advanced by Virginia Democrats. He is the highest-profile candidate among those who have so far expressed interest or declared their intention to run.
Cooney steered two criminal prosecutions of Trump for holding onto classified documents and attempting to overturn the results of the 2020 election. The Justice Department dropped both of those federal cases in November 2024 following Trump’s reelection, aligning with policies against prosecuting a sitting president.
Cooney, who was dismissed by Trump a few days into his second term in January 2025, said that the president’s “lawlessness and abuses of power” motivated him to jump into politics.
“In this moment, confronted with such threats, I really needed to join that fight and bring that perspective and experience to the U.S. Congress,” he said in an interview Wednesday.
Cooney’s announcement coincides with an effort from Democratic state lawmakers in Virginia to redraw the state’s congressional maps, where they hold six of 11 seats representing the commonwealth.
The new maps, which were proposed amid a national redistricting arms race sparked by Trump, would give the party an advantage in 10 seats.
Legislation advancing that plan quickly passed through the state’s legislature Tuesday. But the complicated, multistep process to adopt the maps faces a legal challenge. It would also have to be approved by Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger (D) — and then the state’s voters — before going into effect.
Cooney said he plans to run in one of five newly proposed districts that would divide up the liberal, vote-rich Northern Virginia suburbs and extend farther south and west into rural, redder territory.
The new 7th Congressional District, where Cooney says he is running, has drawn particularly sharp criticism from Republicans over its lobsterlike shape: It takes in a narrow strip of Arlington, Fairfax and Prince William counties and then much of the Piedmont area before splitting into two “claws” — one toward the western edge of the Richmond area and another toward Harrisonburg and the Shenandoah Valley.
Rep. Eugene Vindman (D), who also campaigned on his efforts to stand up to Trump before entering politics, represents the 7th District as it is currently drawn. Vindman is expected to run in a different district that includes his home in eastern Prince William if the new maps are approved.
There would be no incumbent in the new 7th District. Cooney is likely to face a large field, including state and local lawmakers and other former federal officials.
The winner of the Democratic primary is favored to win the general election in the redrawn seat. Spanberger won more than 58 percent of the vote in the new boundaries in last fall’s gubernatorial election, according to the nonpartisan Virginia Public Access Project.
Cooney, who lives in the same North Arlington house where he grew up, previously worked in a high-profile section of the Justice Department focused on combating political corruption and led the public corruption division in the federal prosecutor’s office in D.C.
He also prosecuted former senator Bob Menendez (D-New Jersey), who was sentenced to more than a decade in prison in a high-profile international bribery scheme.
Nationally, Cooney is likely to be among a number of candidates campaigning on their resistance to the Trump administration from within the halls of government.
Vindman’s identical twin brother, Alexander — who became well-known for his role in Trump’s first impeachment — is seeking the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate in Florida.
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