Top Jan. 6 prosecutor says Trump's Capitol riot pardons signal approval of political violence

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4 days ago

WASHINGTON — The federal prosecutor who oversaw the Capitol riot investigation is speaking out about President Donald Trump's mass pardon of Jan. 6 rioters and the Trump administration's targeting of career law enforcement officials who worked cases against the people who attacked the U.S. Capitol.
Greg Rosen, who was the chief of the Capitol Siege Section of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia, called the Justice Department's handling of Jan. 6 cases appropriate, proportional and righteous, noting that hundreds of defendants convicted of misdemeanors ultimately were sentenced to probation.
'The concept that these defendants were railroaded or mistreated is belied by the actual facts,' Rosen said in an interview days after he resigned from the Justice Department. 'The reality is every single case was treated with the utmost scrutiny, and every single case required the same level of due process, maximal due process afforded by the U.S. Constitution."
Judges appointed by presidents of both parties adjudicated the cases, and Rosen said the historical record created by the prosecutions "is what will speak volumes, not conjecture and not speculation.'
Rosen, who was previously a prosecutor in Virginia, served at the Justice Department for more than a decade, culminating in his role overseeing the Jan. 6 cases, leading a unit that was shut down when Trump came to office. Trump pardoned roughly 1,500 defendants and commuted the sentences of members of the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers. Those pardons, Rosen said, sent the wrong message to the American public.
'The underlying message of the pardons and the expressive nature of the pardons is that political violence is acceptable, particularly if it's done for a specific purpose,' Rosen said. 'Political violence in an American society, in a constitutional republic, is essentially the brain rot of the republic. I think Benjamin Franklin once said, 'It's a republic if you can keep it.' To have pardons ... pardoned people who committed wrong, objectively speaking, and then to celebrate that is a message to the American people that the rule of law may not matter.'
Rosen resigned from the Justice Department last week and is joining a private law firm after a tumultuous few months when some of his colleagues were fired, while he and other leaders were demoted to entry-level positions by the former interim U.S. attorney for Washington, Ed Martin, whom Trump named as his pardon attorney and as director of the Justice Department's working group investigating what Trump has called "weaponization" of law enforcement against himself and allies.
Rosen also spoke about the Trump administration's pending settlement of a lawsuit filed by the family of Ashli Babbitt, who was shot and killed by a Capitol Police officer as she tried to climb through a broken glass door in the building. Trump and his allies are also discussing potential settlements with Jan. 6 defendants. Rosen called the news "shocking" and said it was not supported by the evidence.
The notion that Jan. 6 defendants were "part of some system of weaponization is just not borne out by the truth, it's not borne out by the facts," he said.
The public, Rosen said, often overlooks that the prosecutions of Jan. 6 defendants began in the final days of Trump's first term, when Trump himself was publicly declaring that rioters would be held accountable.
Rosen said it should be easy to evaluate what happened from an apolitical and nonpartisan perspective. "A crime obviously occurred," Rosen said. "We investigated that crime, we brought charges, and those charges were vetted and scrupulously analyzed by — not only internal to the department," before charges were brought, "but externally, by judges and juries.'
Rosen said the firings and demotions of federal employees who worked on Jan. 6 cases have left the Trump administration less prepared to handle the types of cases it proclaimed to want to prioritize.
"The irony here is that every single one of those prosecutors, the ones who were fired or the ones who were demoted, were individuals who would have otherwise served the community, served the District of Columbia and helped prevent violent crime in a way consistent with any administration's priorities, let alone this administration's priorities," Rosen said. "Frankly, it's ridiculous that we are seeing retaliation being taken against people who did their jobs and did their jobs effectively with the full-throated support of the United States government."
'This is not a circumstance where we are essentially deep state actors, so to speak. We are just trying to do our jobs,' he said. 'From my perspective, it sends a terrible message. It sends a message that every aspect of what you do will somehow be politicized or the word I think that keeps getting used is 'weaponized,' and that's very unfortunate.'
Rosen, whose father was in law enforcement, said he always wanted to be a trial attorney. He was drawn to the U.S. attorney's office in Washington because of its unique status as an office that prosecutes both local and federal crimes.
Now, Rosen is joining the boutique litigation firm Rogers Joseph O'Donnell, as some Washington law firms that have worked cases against Trump or his priorities face threats from the administration.
"Law firms, whether you are on a firm that is from big law or whether you're at a solo practitioning firm, you should be able to represent your clients zealously and zealously in a way that is not impacted by who the president of the United States is," Rosen said. "There can be a chilling effect. And I think what we're seeing in the litigation across the board, particularly when it came to some of the executive orders, is that firms can be practically, morally and financially impacted in ways that could not just hurt the business, but undermine the rule of law and the ability of lawyers to fulfill their constitutional duties."
Rosen said he hopes the record created by the prosecutions of Jan. 6 defendants helps shape how the attack is perceived in history, even as political actors chip away at its reality.
"What I hope the takeaway will be to citizens of this country is that what happened on Jan. 6, 2021, was a national disgrace and then the prosecution that followed reaffirmed the principles of the rule of law and vindicated the rights and the bravery of law enforcement," Rosen said.
'I would not change a thing about the way we conducted ourselves and the honor in which we brought to the court and to the system,' he added.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com