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.
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