Prosecutor says he was fired after MAGA conspiracy post targeted him
3 Min Read
Veteran prosecutor Michael Ben’Ary links his firing to a social media campaign, raising alarms over DOJ political firings and national security setbacks.
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The seal of the Department of Justice US Attorney's Office is seen during a news conference in Washington, Thursday, May 22, 2025 (AP)
A senior national security prosecutor in the eastern district of Virginia, who was apparently fired this week, explained in a farewell note taped to his door for colleagues on Friday that the reason for his dismissal was a January 6 conspiracy theorist denouncing him on social media for having worked for the deputy attorney general in the Biden administration.
Veteran federal prosecutor Michael Ben’Ary was fired on Wednesday, coinciding with pro-Trump commentator Julie Kelly making a social media post suggesting Ben’Ary was an ally of his former boss, Lisa Monaco, the senior Justice Department official who helped lead the investigation into Donald Trump's role in the Capitol riot.
“It appears that my termination was based on little more than a single social media post containing false information,” the ousted prosecutor wrote, adding, “The leadership is more concerned with punishing the President’s perceived enemies than they are with protecting our national security.”
Expressing that he was "troubled that I was removed so abruptly in the middle of important work," Ben'Ary specifically mentioned his role in prosecuting a suspected Islamic State member for planning the 2021 suicide bombing at the Kabul airport's Abbey Gate during the US withdrawal, an attack that killed 13 American service members and scores of Afghan civilians.
Gone for political reasons
When Erik Siebert, then-interim US attorney, announced the charges in March against the suspected orchestrator of the attack, he named Ben'Ary and Troy Edwards as the two assistant US attorneys to lead the prosecution; however, all three of these career prosecutors are now gone for political reasons.
Siebert was forced out by Donald Trump for declining to bring charges against James Comey due to a lack of evidence that the former FBI director had committed any crime.
Edwards, who is a national security prosecutor and James Comey's son-in-law, resigned after the former Trump aide who was installed to replace Siebert brought charges against Comey anyway.
On Wednesday, shortly after Kelly made a conspiratorial post about him, Ben’Ary was informed in writing that he had been terminated with immediate effect. “Justice for Americans killed and injured by our enemies should not be contingent on what someone in the Department of Justice sees in their social media feed that day,” Ben’Ary wrote.
