Michael Gordon prosecuted some of the most notorious members of the mob that attacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. His latest case to make is proving that the Justice Department fired him because he was good at his job.
Gordon sued the federal government Thursday, claiming his June 27 termination was politically motivated retribution for his work on prosecuting Trump supporters who stormed the Capitol. He and two other former Justice Department officials are plaintiffs in a lawsuit against the department, Attorney General Pam Bondi and the Executive Office of the President.
Dozens of Justice Department attorneys have been fired, demoted or forced out or have quit since President Donald Trump returned to the White House in January. Gordon and the other plaintiffs — Patricia Hartman and Joseph Tirrell — appear to be the first of them to file a lawsuit.
Hartman was a public affairs specialist for the U.S. Attorney’s office for the District of Columbia. Tirrell led the department’s ethics office.
Gordon, 47, said he received a performance review two days before his firing and got the highest rating. His one-page termination letter, signed by Bondi, didn’t specify any reasons for his dismissal.
Gordon, who joined the department in 2017, said he is proud to have played a part in the largest investigation in Justice Department history.
“We did what was right for the right reasons, without fear or favor,” Gordon told The Associated Press this week. “I didn’t lose my job for breaking the law. I lost it for enforcing it.”
A Justice Department spokesperson declined to comment.
After watching the Capitol riot unfold live on television from his office in Tampa, Florida, Gordon volunteered to join the team of federal prosecutors working full-time on Jan. 6 cases.
Nearly 1,600 people were charged with Capitol riot-related crimes. Gordon prosecuted more than three dozen of those defendants.
Among them was Richard “Bigo” Barnett, an Arkansas man who propped his feet on a desk in then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office; Eric Munchel, a Tennessee bartender who carried plastic zip-tie handcuffs and a stun gun into the Senate gallery; and Rebecca Lavrenz, a Colorado woman who promoted herself online as the “J6 praying grandma.”
Gordon also handled the case against Ray Epps, a former Arizona resident who became a target of right-wing conspiracy theories about Jan. 6. Fox News Channel and other right-wing media outlets amplified baseless claims that Epps was an undercover government agent who helped incite the attack to entrap Trump supporters.
Former colleagues describe Gordon as a hardworking attorney who was a valuable member of the Capitol riot team. And there’s no doubt in their minds that he was fired purely for political reasons.
“There is no reason why you would want to lose somebody like Mike Gordon,” said Michael Romano, who was deputy chief of the Justice Department’s now-disbanded Capitol Siege Section before resigning earlier this year.
