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The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
World
Robert Mackey

Fired national security prosecutor warns colleagues in note on way out

Department of Justice written on a beige wall
‘The leadership is more concerned with punishing the President’s perceived enemies than they are with protecting our national security,’ wrote Ben’Ary Photograph: Allison Bailey/NurPhoto/REX/Shutterstock

A senior national security prosecutor in the eastern district of Virginia said in a farewell note taped to his door to colleagues on Friday that he was apparently fired this week because a January 6 conspiracy theorist denounced him on social media for having worked for the deputy attorney general in the Biden administration.

The veteran federal prosecutor, Michael Ben’Ary, was fired on Wednesday, the same day that Julie Kelly, a pro-Trump commentator who once called a Capitol police officer beaten by the pro-Trump mob on January 6 a “crisis actor”, suggested on social media that Ben’Ary was an ally of his former boss, Lisa Monaco, a senior justice department official who helped drive the investigation of Donald Trump’s role in the Capitol riot.

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