Reframing Jan. 6: After the Pardons, the Purge

In its campaign of “uprooting the foot soldiers,” the Trump Justice Department has fired or demoted more than two dozen Jan. 6 prosecutors, even as those they sent to prison walk free.




Michael Gordon, left, was dismissed as a federal prosecutor after he investigated the storming of the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, right.

By Dan Barry and Alan Feuer
Dan Barry reported from Tampa, Fla., and Alan Feuer from Washington. Both have written extensively about the Jan. 6 riot and its aftermath.
Aug. 24, 2025, 5:00 a.m. ET

The lawyer took the elevator 32 floors to the U.S. attorney’s office, where for eight years he had worked as a highly regarded prosecutor. He had a container of homemade chocolate chip cookies to share and some thoughts to keep to himself. “You have to be polite,” the lawyer, Michael Gordon, explained as the elevator rose. “But I don’t want to minimize it, or make it seem like everything’s OK. It’s not.”

Mr. Gordon was heading up on this steaming late July day in Tampa, Fla., to collect his things and say goodbye. Three weeks earlier, and just two days after receiving yet another outstanding performance review, he had been interviewing a witness online when a grim-faced colleague interrupted to hand him a letter. It said he was being “removed from federal service effective immediately” — as in, now.

Although the brief letter, signed by Attorney General Pam Bondi, provided no justification, Mr. Gordon knew the likely reason: Jan. 6, 2021. … He was being fired for successfully prosecuting people who had stormed the United States Capitol that day — assaulting police officers, vandalizing a national landmark and disrupting that sacrosanct moment in a democracy, the transfer of presidential power. … He was being fired for doing his job.

The letter did more than inform Mr. Gordon, a 47-year-old father of two, that he was unemployed. It confirmed for him his view that the Justice Department he had been honored to work for was now helping to whitewash a traumatic event in American history, supporting President Trump’s reframing of its violence as patriotic — and those who had prosecuted rioters in the name of justice as villains, perhaps even traitors.


Mr. Gordon’s termination letter, signed by Attorney General Pam Bondi.

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Richard Barnett at the desk of then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi.Credit...Saul Loeb/Agence France--Presse/Getty Images


Mr. Barnett was one of the many rioters pardoned by President Trump.Credit...Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA, via Shutterstock

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Ed Martin, a federal prosecutor, has helped to dismantle the Jan. 6. investigation at the Justice Department.Credit...Amanda Andrade-Rhoades/Associated Press

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Read by Dan Barry
Audio produced by Adrienne Hurst.

Dan Barry is a longtime reporter and columnist, having written both the “This Land” and “About New York” columns. The author of several books, he writes on myriad topics, including New York City, sports, culture and the nation.

Alan Feuer covers extremism and political violence for The Times, focusing on the criminal cases involving the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol and against former President Donald J. Trump.

A version of this article appears in print on Aug. 24, 2025, Section A, Page 1 of the New York edition with the headline: Jan. 6 Rioters Walked. Prosecutors Were Shown the Door.. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe