The federal prosecutor who helped lead the largest federal criminal case in American history has resigned his position in the Justice Department.
Longtime Assistant U.S. Attorney Greg Rosen, the chief of the Justice Department’s Capitol Siege Section, has departed for a post with a private law firm.
In an interview with CBS News, Rosen said President Trump’s pardons of the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol rioters continue to shock and alarm the federal investigators who handled the cases.
“The message that [the pardons] send is that political violence towards a political goal is acceptable in a modern democratic society,” Rosen said. “That, from my perspective, is anathema to a constitutional republic.”
Rosen helped oversee a team of Justice Department attorneys as the agency grappled with an historically large onslaught of criminal cases after the Capitol riot, which injured dozens of police officers and caused millions of dollars in damage to the Capitol complex.
He said the president’s decision to pardon all — not just some — of the Capitol riot defendants was a stunning decision that has caused damage.
“It sends a terrible message to the American people,” Rosen said. “Individuals who were duly — and appropriately — convicted of federal crimes ranging in culpability are immediately let loose without any supervision, without any remorse, without any rehabilitation to civil society.”
Rosen handled a range of criminal cases during his tenure at the U.S. Attorney’s Office of the District of Columbia, one of the largest and most powerful of the federal prosecutors’ offices in the nation. In addition to drug and gun crimes, Rosen took on responsibility for the section handling Jan. 6 cases. He was a lead prosecutor in the case of Leo Kelly, an Iowa man who was convicted at trial in May 2023.
He took note of the Justice Department’s remarkable success rate in Jan. 6 trials, securing partial or full convictions in 100% of jury trials. Rosen blasted criticism from Trump supporters who allege the juries were biased or the prosecutions were politicized.
“The reason those juries convicted — and the reason those judges convicted individuals — was not because of some bug in the due process,” Rosen said. “It was because the evidence was overwhelming. It was the most videotaped crime in American history.”
Soon after Mr. Trump’s Inauguration-Day pardons of the Jan. 6 defendants, Justice Department officials demoted or fired some of the prosecutors who handled the Jan. 6 prosecutions and disbanded the Capitol Siege Section. Critics have accused the administration of seeking vengeance or revenge, targeting attorneys with solid track records.
“To see those talented prosecutors be marginalized or removed from office is an affront to the independence of the department,” Rosen said.
The Justice Department and the D.C. U.S. Attorney’s Office did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Rosen will soon be starting his new job as attorney at the Rogers, Joseph O’Donnell law firm in Washington, D.C. He told CBS News, “I felt like it was time for a change — and a time to take what I’ve been doing and what I’ve learned over the course of 15 years in state and federal practice — and bring it to the private sector, where I can benefit clients who are being scrutinized by the government.”
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