Justice Department fires prosecutor falsely tied to Comey case in social media post
By Evan Perez, Katelyn Polantz, CNN
(CNN) — The Trump administration fired the top national security prosecutor in the US Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia after a social media post by a right-wing activist and writer falsely tied him to the case of FBI Director James Comey, two people familiar with the matter said.
Michael Ben’Ary was chief of the national security section in the Alexandria, Virginia-based office and previously worked at Justice Department headquarters. He was fired Wednesday, the two sources said, after Julie Kelly, a pro-Trump activist and writer, posted on X about Ben’Ary, saying, “One can only assume he was a big part of the internal resistance to the Comey indictment.”
Ben’Ary wasn’t involved in the Comey case, one of the people familiar with the matter told CNN.
Comey was indicted by a grand jury last week on two felony counts, a move that came after career lawyers in the office wrote a memo outlining their concerns that the evidence in the case didn’t support prosecution. Before the Comey indictment, President Donald Trump fired his own nominee to lead the office and installed his former personal lawyer Lindsey Halligan as interim US attorney, after publicly urging Attorney General Pam Bondi to target political enemies including Comey.
Spokesmen for the Justice Department and the Eastern District of Virginia didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. Ben’Ary didn’t respond to a request for comment on his LinkedIn account.
The firing appears to be the latest in a series of purges of Justice Department prosecutors and employees after being targeted by prominent MAGA influencers on social media.
In a lawsuit filed last month, three former FBI agents cited social media posts by pro-Trump accounts as influencing their firings at the bureau.
The-CNN-Wire
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