WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said Friday that he wanted to see the ouster of a U.S. attorney whose investigations of New York Attorney General Letitia James and former FBI director James Comey have not resulted in charges.
Hours later, the U.S. attorney, Erik S. Siebert of the Eastern District of Virginia, informed prosecutors in his office through a staff email that he had resigned.
Siebert had recently told senior Justice Department officials that investigators found insufficient evidence to bring charges against James and had also raised concerns about a potential case against Comey, according to officials familiar with the situation. Trump has long viewed James and Comey as adversaries and has repeatedly pledged retribution against law enforcement officials who pursued him.
The president, speaking to reporters in the Oval Office, initially said he was not following the matter closely. But he instantly belied that comment, saying he wanted Siebert removed because two Democratic senators from Virginia had approved of his nomination to the Senate.
The president did not mention that he nominated Siebert only after the two senators had already written Trump praising him.
When asked if he would fire Siebert, Trump responded, “Yeah, I want him out.”
Trump’s comments came after a high-stakes internal debate raged Friday over the fate of Siebert — with Trump’s own appointees at the Justice Department and key Republicans on Capitol Hill arguing to retain the veteran prosecutor.
The removal of a U.S. attorney who was investigating the president’s foes showed how deeply the administration has departed from the long-standing norm of avoiding political interference in prosecutions in favor of using the justice system to seek retribution.
A lawyer for James, Abbe Lowell, called Siebert’s removal “a brazen attack on the rule of law.”
A spokesperson for Siebert did not comment.
Siebert told a group of prosecutors Friday afternoon that he was considering resigning, and that Maya D. Song, the first assistant U.S. attorney in the office responsible for its operations, had been demoted to a job as a line prosecutor, according to two people familiar with the comments.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
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