A senior federal prosecutor in Virginia was fired after a disagreement about whether he would take charge of the Trump administration’s effort to re-indict James B. Comey, according to multiple people familiar with the matter.
The prosecutor, Robert K. McBride, had been working in the U.S. attorney’s office for the Eastern District of Virginia for only a couple of months. His firing is the latest development in the fallout in the Justice Department over President Trump’s effort to punish Mr. Comey, the former F.B.I. director and his longtime nemesis, whom the president blames for past investigations of his conduct.
Mr. McBride had been serving as the top deputy to Lindsey Halligan, a temporary assignment after he spent more than a decade as a federal prosecutor in Kentucky. The Trump administration made Ms. Halligan the U.S. attorney overseeing that prosecutor’s office last year.
Ms. Halligan was put in the job through an unusual personnel maneuver that a judge later determined was unlawful. In doing so, the judge declared that she was not a valid U.S. attorney and dismissed two high-profile cases that she had brought, charging Mr. Comey with lying to Congress and charging Attorney General Letitia James of New York with lying on mortgage paperwork.
The administration has tried to restart the Comey prosecution and wanted Mr. McBride to lead that effort, according to people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal discussions. Mr. McBride said he could not do that while also running the prosecutor’s office as the first assistant U.S. attorney — he could do one or the other, these people said.
That explanation for his firing was disputed by one person familiar with the events, who said that Mr. McBride was dismissed because he had secretly met with judges in the district to try to persuade them to appoint him to her job. That person also said Mr. McBride had resisted pursuing immigration-related investigations related to local jurisdictions’ sanctuary policies and drug enforcement. The person also said Justice Department leaders supported the decision to fire Mr. McBride.
It is commonplace for the leaders of a U.S. attorney’s office, including a first assistant, to meet with judges in the district, particularly given that Ms. Halligan had been declared by the court to be an invalid U.S. attorney.
Last month, the Trump administration appealed the ruling by Judge Cameron McGowan Currie that voided Ms. Halligan’s appointment as U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia. But even though Judge Currie found that Ms. Halligan had been installed unlawfully, she has continued to lay claim to that title.
In an effort to understand why, a federal judge in Richmond, Va., has given Ms. Halligan until Tuesday to explain in writing why her repeated decisions to sign court papers as the district’s top prosecutor were not “a false or misleading statement.” Continuing to do so, the judge suggested, could lead to disciplinary measures.
Senior Justice Department officials have privately decided that because Judge Currie’s ruling did not expressly remove Ms. Halligan from office, she could remain, according to people familiar with their decision.
Judge Currie’s decision to disqualify Ms. Halligan centered on Mr. Trump’s unorthodox move to appoint her in an interim capacity, replacing his previous pick, who was also serving in a temporary role. Judge Currie found that federal law did not allow the administration to appoint two interim prosecutors in succession.
Mr. Trump fired Ms. Halligan’s predecessor, Erik S. Siebert, after he refused to bring charges against Mr. Comey and Ms. James.
Other judges have rejected the administration’s efforts to install U.S. attorneys in a similar fashion. Federal judges in other states have made similar rulings against Alina Habba as the U.S. attorney in New Jersey and John A. Sarcone III in upstate New York.
Julie Tate contributed research.
Devlin Barrett covers the Justice Department and the F.B.I. for The Times.
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