Trump-appointed prosecutor ousts 2 more top attorneys from Virginia office: Sources
Lindsey Halligan, the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, has fired two top lawyers in the office who resisted an effort to bring charges against New York Attorney General Letitia James, sources familiar with the matter confirmed to ABC News.
Elizabeth Yusi, the top criminal prosecutor for the Norfolk office, and her deputy Kristin Bird were informed of their removals Friday -- marking the latest firings in one of the most important federal prosecutorial offices in the country that oversees sensitive national security and terrorism cases.
Sources familiar with the matter said their firings were tied to their resistance to bringing charges against James.
Halligan was appointed to the Virginia office last month to replace an official who had defied demands to prosecute President Donald Trump's perceived enemies, including James and former FBI Director James Comey.
ABC News previously was the first to report that investigators in the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Virginia determined that there was no evidence to support a probable cause standard to charge James on fraud charges stemming from a referral from the Federal Housing Finance Agency director Bill Pulte.
Halligan, without the support of any career prosecutors in the office she now leads, moved forward in seeking an indictment of James.
A grand jury on Oct. 9 charged James with two counts of bank fraud and false statements to a financial institution.
James, who has denied wrongdoing and cast her prosecution as an effort to weaponize the Justice Department against Trump's political opponents, is set to appear in court next Friday for her arraignment.
Yusi and Bird's firings are likely to stoke further turmoil in an office that has already seen the departures of multiple senior officials who have told colleagues they believe their removals were driven solely by politics.
Earlier this month, two other officials -- including the office's top national security prosecutor, Michael Ben'Ary -- were fired.
