Inside a year of firings that have shaken the Trump Justice Department: 'A great deal of fear'

WASHINGTON — Michael Ben'Ary was driving one evening last October when he paused at a red light to check his work phone. He was in the middle of a counterterrorism prosecution so important that President Donald Trump highlighted it in his address to Congress.

Ben'Ary said he was shocked to see his phone was disabled. He found the explanation later in his personal email account, a letter informing him he was fired.

A veteran prosecutor, Ben'Ary handled high-profile cases over two decades at the Justice Department. Yet the same credentials that enhanced Ben'Ary's resume spelled the undoing of his government career.

His termination came hours after right-wing commentator Julie Kelly told her online followers that he had previously served as a senior counsel to Lisa Monaco, the No. 2 Justice Department official in Democratic President Joe Biden's administration. Kelly also suggested Ben'Ary was part of the ''internal resistance'' to prosecuting former FBI Director James Comey. Ben'Ary was never involved in the case.

As Trump's attorney general, Pam Bondi, approaches her first year on the job, the firings of attorneys such as Ben'Ary have defined her turbulent tenure. The terminations and a larger voluntary exodus of lawyers have erased centuries of combined experience and left the department with fewer career employees to act as a bulwark for the rule of law as Trump, a Republican, tests the limits of executive power by demanding prosecutions of his political enemies.

Interviews by The Associated Press of more than a half-dozen fired employees offer a snapshot of the toll. The departures include lawyers who prosecuted attacks on police at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, civil rights and ethics enforcers, immigration judges and attorneys who defend administration policies. This week, several prosecutors in Minnesota moved to resign amid turmoil over an investigation into the shooting of a woman in Minneapolis by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer.

''To lose people at that career level, people who otherwise intended to stay and now are either being discharged or themselves are walking away, is immensely damaging to the public interest,'' said Stuart Gerson, a senior official in the George H.W. Bush administration and acting attorney general early in the Clinton administration.

The Justice Department says it has hired thousands of career attorneys over the last year. The Trump administration has publicly characterized some of the fired and departed workers as out-of-step with its agenda.

After he was fired, Ben'Ary who led the national security unit at the U.S. attorney's office for the Eastern District of Virginia, posted a note near his door reminding colleagues they had vowed to follow the facts ''unhindered by political interference.''

But, he warned, ''In recent months, the political leadership of the Department have violated these principles, jeopardizing our national security and making American citizens less safe.''

An unprecedented purge

The firings began before Bondi arrived in February. Prosecutors on special counsel Jack Smith's team that investigated Trump were terminated days after the inauguration, followed by prosecutors hired on temporary assignments for cases resulting from the Capitol insurrection in 2021.

The Justice Department has disputed the accounts of some of those who have fired or quit and has defended the termination of those who investigated Trump as ''consistent with the mission of ending the weaponization of government.''

''This is the most efficient Department of Justice in American history, and our attorneys will continue to deliver measurable results for the American people,'' the department said in a statement. It says more than 3,400 career attorneys have been hired since Trump took office.

The departures have affected the department's daily business as well as efforts to fulfill Trump's desires to prosecute political opponents.

Desperate for lawyers willing to file criminal cases against Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James, the administration in September forced out the veteran U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, replacing him with Lindsey Halligan, a White House aide with no experience as a federal prosecutor.

Halligan secured the indictments but the win was short-lived. A judge dismissed both prosecutions, calling Halligan's appointment unlawful.

Upon Trump's return to the White House, Khalidi watched Jan. 6 cases she handled get dismantled by Trump's sweeping clemency for all 1,500 defendants charged in the riot.

Less than two weeks later, a Justice Department demand for the names of FBI agents involved in Jan. 6 investigations triggered rumors of potential mass firings. As she prepared dinner one Friday evening, she received an email suggesting she had lost her own job.

The news came in September for Anam Petit, an immigration judge, who learned via email during a break between hearings that she'd been fired. She left to text her husband, then returned to work.

''I just put my phone back in my pocket and went into the courtroom and delivered my decision, with a very shaky voice and shaky hands, trying to center myself back to that decision just so that I could relay it,'' Petit said.

‘Our country depends on you'

Ben'Ary spent the next several months working on the case against Mohammad Sharifullah. On Oct. 1, Ben'Ary was fired without explanation.

In his farewell note, he observed that in ''just a few short months'' career employees like himself had been removed.