A prosecutor who handled some of the most high-profile cases against Jan. 6, 2021 rioters is suing the government over his dismissal last month, arguing that the decision was politically motivated.
Former assistant U.S. attorney Michael Gordon is one of dozens of federal prosecutors the Justice Department has fired since President Donald Trump returned to office, despite such measures generally only being used in cases of misconduct, as The Washington Post reported last month.
On Thursday, Gordon and two other former DOJ employees — Patricia A. Hartman, who was a public affairs specialist in the U.S. attorney’s office for the District of Columbia, and Joseph W. Tirrell, who led the department’s ethics office — filed a lawsuit Thursday over their terminations, which they said disregarded “long-standing statutory and regulatory protections that govern how and when members of the civil service can be terminated, and the limits thereof.”