US Justice Department faces fallout over push to prosecute former FBI head: Report

Several US prosecutors have either been reassigned or forced out of a key regional office amid a backlash over Justice Department efforts to prosecute a former FBI head whom President Donald Trump sees as his political enemy, local media reported Saturday.

Other attorneys have chosen to leave the US Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia -- near Washington -- or search for other positions out of concern they might be pressured to handle cases that conflict with their principles, a Washington Post report said, noting that the disruption has also affected major prosecutions.

The turmoil comes alongside significant spending of government funds and investigative resources on two indictments against former FBI Director James Comey -- who served under both then-President Barack Obama and then Trump before being fired in May 2017 -- which many legal experts said “have little merit” and are largely motivated by Trump’s “animus” toward the former FBI chief.

As the department prepares for a second prosecution of Comey, the consequences of Trump’s campaign against him continue to grow, the report said, with “shock waves rippling through the Justice Department” underlining “the high price of the president’s single-minded pursuit of his adversaries to its personnel, resources and mission.”

So far, the legal outcomes have been limited. The first indictment, accusing Comey of misleading Congress in 2018 about his role in leaks, was thrown out after a judge ruled that the prosecutor handling the case had been improperly appointed.

A second indictment, returned by a grand jury last week, alleges that Comey threatened the president through an arrangement of seashells on social media 10 months ago, though many attorneys contend the charges misapply the legal standard for a true threat.

Since Trump returned to the White House for a second term, Democrats charge that he has weaponized the Justice Department to pursue his perceived enemies at the expense of neglecting to prosecute genuine cases of corruption and crime.