By Kyle Cheney and Josh Gerstein | 02/28/2025 02:13 PM EST
The Justice Department has demoted some of the most senior federal prosecutors who brought criminal charges against top allies of Donald Trump and handled some of the most significant cases stemming from the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021.
The demoted prosecutors include a group that sent to prison leaders of the far-right Proud Boys and Oath Keepers for spearheading the Jan. 6 attack.
Four people familiar with the development, which was first reported by Reuters, described the shake-up on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive personnel moves. They say interim U.S. Attorney Ed Martin is transferring the veteran prosecutors to pursue misdemeanor offenses in D.C. Superior Court, which handles violations of the local criminal code. That’s a significant step down for prosecutors who were responsible for some of the most high-profile criminal cases in recent memory. Typically, junior prosecutors begin in D.C. Superior Court before working their way up to overseeing federal court cases.
Spokespeople for Martin did not immediately respond to requests for comment Friday.
Those demoted include John Crabb and Elizabeth Aloi, who prosecuted contempt of Congress cases that sent Steve Bannon and Peter Navarro to jail for four months apiece. They include Jason McCullough, who helped lead the team that sent top Proud Boys leaders Enrique Tarrio, Joe Biggs and Ethan Nordean to prison for their role in orchestrating the breach of the Capitol. And they include Kathryn Rakoczy, who was a lead prosecutor in the Jan. 6 cases of Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes and more than a dozen of his allies, for their involvement in the attack on the Capitol.
Greg Rosen, who headed the Capitol Siege section in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia, also was demoted. One prosecutor who worked for Rosen until recently, Brendan Ballou, praised Rosen and decried the wave of reassignments.
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“Like a great football coach, he brought the best out of every player,” Ballou said. “That Ed Martin is trying to demote or humiliate him speaks to the smallness of Martin and his agenda.”
Another prosecutor who played a leading role in Jan. 6 prosecutions, Michael Romano, was also targeted for demotion despite the fact that he technically works for the Justice Department’s Public Integrity Section, not directly within the U.S. attorney’s purview,.
Though personnel shakeups at the Justice Department during the early weeks of Trump’s second term have primarily targeted younger and less-experienced prosecutors, this new wave takes aim at some of the department’s most widely recognized veterans. Crabb played a memorable role in the case of another Trump ally, Roger Stone, after DOJ leaders intervened to rescind a stiff sentencing recommendation initially recommended by line prosecutors.
McCullough and Rakoczy, in particular, were fixtures in the federal courthouse over the last four years during the protracted trials of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers leaders.
Rakoczy attended the December sentencing of cooperating Oath Keeper Joshua James, who pleaded guilty to seditious conspiracy early in the Jan. 6 investigation, helping fuel the prosecution of Rhodes and other top allies. And McCullough, similarly, was seen in the courthouse in December when Tarrio appeared as a witness in a related criminal case.
On the first day of his second term, Trump wiped away the protracted Jan. 6 investigation with a stroke of his pen, granting mass clemency to the Proud Boys, the Oath Keepers and about 1,500 other Jan. 6 defendants.
Source: https://www.politico.com/news/2025/02/28/doj-demotions-prosecutors-trump-00206762