Exclusive: Senior prosecutor removed as Lindsey Halligan reshapes key US attorney’s office
By Kristen Holmes, Katelyn Polantz, CNN
(CNN) — Maggie Cleary — the senior Justice Department prosecutor who briefly led the powerful US attorney’s office in the Eastern District of Virginia last month before Trump ally Lindsey Halligan took over — has been removed from the office, according to two people familiar with the matter.
It’s unclear if Cleary is still employed by the Justice Department, potentially now in a different role, the sources said. She couldn’t be reached immediately on Monday, and a Justice Department spokesman declined to comment.
Cleary is the latest person exiting the office, as the Justice Department political leadership has become bolder in removing people that oppose their decisions. Halligan has moved quickly to assert her authority over the office, with several recent firings and departures, and becoming personally involved in courtroom proceedings — which is unusual for a US attorney —in the recent indictments of Trump foes James Comey and Letitia James.
The move indicates a deepening split between the Halligan, who leads the powerful office, and its roster of experienced prosecutors.
Another source familiar with the dynamic in the office told CNN that Halligan was interested in moving around prosecutors who she believed may oppose her work on highly politicized cases.
Cleary’s departure is the latest in a string of resignations and firings in the Eastern District of Virginia in less than a month.
The first Trump-appointed US Attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia, Erik Siebert, resigned under pressure from Trump, as resistance in the office built around charging Comey at the end of September.
Cleary sided with career prosecutors who opposed bringing the Comey case. She sat in a back row, not at the government table, when Halligan presented the indictment from the grand jury before the magistrate judge.
Two other career prosecutors, Michael Ben’Ary and Maya Song, were fired in the aftermath of Halligan charging Comey. Comey’s son-in-law Troy Edwards Jr., who was a career prosecutor in the office, also resigned.
Justice Department “leadership is more concerned with punishing the President’s perceived enemies than they are with protecting our national security,” Ben’Ary wrote in a note he taped to the door of his former office when he left two weeks ago.
Cleary, with years of prosecutorial and trial experience, had served in the administrations of Republican leadership in Virginia before joining the federal prosecutors’ office in Alexandria, Virginia, this year.
She then served in the US attorney position for about three days, before Trump installed Halligan, his former personal attorney and a lawyer with no criminal trial experience. Cleary, at the time, was moved to become the office’s first assistant — essentially the top prosecutor’s job under Halligan.
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