Fmr. Federal Prosecutor on the Turmoil Inside Trump’s Justice Department

BIANNA GOLODRYGA: Our next guest is suing the Trump administration after what he says was a politically motivated dismissal from the Department of Justice. Former Assistant U.S. Attorney Mike Gordon believes that he was abruptly fired because of his role as a senior prosecutor on the Justice Department’s January 6th Capitol riot cases. Gordon is one of many impacted by the DOJ’s firings and its probes into those who’ve opposed President Trump.

 

On Friday, the Justice Department announced that it was launching a criminal investigation into Minnesota Governor Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey over allegedly impeding federal efforts there. Mike Gordon joins Hari Sreenivasan to discuss how the department’s new path could impact judicial order.

 

HARI SREENIVASAN: Bianna, thanks. Mike Gordon, thanks so much for joining us. Recently the Department of Justice has gone after who they perceive to be political rivals. I mean, the list is very long now. I mean, whether it’s James Comey or Letitia James or the Fed governor Lisa Cook. I wonder, the Vice President, JD Vance, insists that these actions are, “driven by law, not politics.” What’s your assessment of that?

 

MIKE: GORDON: I don’t see how that can possibly be true. So I served in the Department of Justice for eight and a half years, and while I was there, there was a mantra that is that we follow the facts and the law wherever they lead without fear or favor. That’s what our task was. And that meant that investigations begin with the facts. They begin with FBI agents and prosecutors seeing wherever they lead. And if they do lead to a prominent person, right, to somebody that’s gonna get a lot of media attention, for example. If we charge that person with a federal crime, then there are many layers of review that you have to go through as a prosecutor to get approval to charge that person, sometimes all the way up to the Attorney general themselves. And that takes a significant amount of time. Sometimes those result in serious public corruption prosecution, but what doesn’t happen is the reverse. And that’s what I’ve been seeing consistently from the administration of the past few months, is starting with the target and then working backwards to try and figure out what crime they might be able to charge.

 

SREENIVASAN: There are a number of sitting elected officials right now that are being targeted — Senator Mark Kelly, Senator Elissa Slotkin, and some House members as well —  for a message that they had sent out to military members, right? And I wonder what’s the legal rationale here for these type of investigations?

 

GORDON: Well, there’s two things at play. One, the Constitution has a speech and debate clause that covers members of Congress and largely insulates them from being prosecuted or otherwise having the levers of government brought against them for things that they say in exercising their First Amendment rights as part of their duties of deliberating and legislating and bringing issues to light to the American people. The administration doesn’t seem to have given any consideration to the speech and debate clause in these cases. In addition, the Department of Justice has its own guidelines, and those deal, though, with election year concerns, and they essentially hold that we don’t charge people within certain timeframes as the, in the lead up to elections. But that doesn’t seem to be an issue because the people the Department has been targeting aren’t currently in election years.

 

SREENIVASAN: So right now there’s also a lot of news and concern about a high profile investigation into Fed Chairman Jerome Powell. The president has been making several comments over months — again, this is somebody that he appointed as Fed chair — that his displeasure on what Federal Chairman Powell is doing. But when you heard that there was an investigation launched into Chairman Powell, what did you think?

 

GORDON: I thought that it was pretty transparently meant as an act of coercion. The President has made no secret that he would like interest rates to be lower. And it’s no, you know, it’s obvious why, because doing that usually gooses the economy in the short term. It carries long-term consequences, though, for inflation. Those may take effect after the president’s already left office. So he’s been, you know, trying to lobby, you know, Chairman Powell to lower interest rates for years, even going back to his first term. That hasn’t succeeded ’cause the Fed is an independent body that’s been setting monetary policy based on what they think is best for the American economy. And so President Trump appears to have turned instead to using the law as a Billy Club to use the Department of Justice as a means to exert coercion over Chairman Powell. And that to me is not only anathema to what the Department of Justice is and what it’s supposed to be, but also it should scare all Americans because Chairman Powell is the target of the president’s ire today — could be any of us tomorrow.

 

SREENIVASAN: Regarding the Powell case, we should note that U.S. attorney in DC, Jeanine Pirro, said on X that, “The United States Attorney’s Office contacted the Federal Reserve on multiple occasions to discuss cost overruns and the chairman’s congressional testimony, but were ignored necessitating the use of legal process, which is not a threat. The word word indictment has come out of Mr. Powell’s mouth. No one else. None of this would’ve happened if they had just responded to our outreach.” 

You know, one of the things that’s been interesting to watch is when judges have thrown out indictments against James Comey, Letitia James in New York, because — again, I don’t know what the statistics are, but that’s not something that I’m used to seeing: the Department of Justice investigations that, you know, like usually the homework is done before you get to court, right?

 

GORDON: Absolutely. In my entire career, I never once had a case rejected by a grand jury. I’d never seen a colleague have a case rejected by the grand jury — covers hundreds of cases. And the reason for that is the Department of Justice is not a shoot first, aim later organization — or at least it never has been. The way the Department of Justice works is you have to do all the work on the front end as a prosecutor, but then also have it approved by a supervisor. And if your target is somebody that is, a prominent person, or if the charges you’re bringing are those that are particularly sensitive, those usually have to get approved at multiple higher levels, including all the way up in D.C. And because of that level of vetting by experienced professionals who are taking careful consideration of all the relevant legal and ethical considerations, we don’t bring cases that the grand jury’s going to reject.

 

The fact that this has happened is an indication of sloppiness. It’s an indication of the Department not giving proper legal or ethical consideration to what it’s doing. And what I’m seeing from the administration, is the actual outcome of these criminal cases doesn’t appear to be the priority. 

 

SREENIVASAN: What does this do to, I guess, the overall credibility of DOJ lawyers? I mean, I don’t, I don’t know how uniform it is across the country, but I just assume that there is a certain deference that judges give to say, Okay, this is a serious person. They’ve done their homework. I should take this piece of paper seriously. But when we see cases like this come out, what do judges start to think?

 

GORDON: The credibility of the Department of Justice has been just gutted over the course of the past few months. Being a DOJ lawyer for many law students — is the brass ring, is a thing they aspire to. Because they want to use their legal degrees to do good. In the Department of Justice, when you stand up in court, you don’t say, I’m Mike Gordon, representing particular person. You say, I’m Mike Gordon representing the United States, and all of its people — even the defendant, even the judge himself. That’s a higher calling. Every DOJ lawyer could make more money in the private sector, but they choose not to. They choose to give up that money in order to do what they think is right, and that’s the charge, do what’s right every day. 

 

That’s not what we’re seeing anymore. And the Department of Justice is hemorrhaging people. Judges are noticing, they’re noticing the change in the Department. They are noticing that they can no longer rely on the fact that everything the Department of Justice lawyer says is the truth or carefully vetted. That kind of erosion of credibility is going to take decades to undo. 

 

I also wanna point out what I think is happening to the confidence of the Department of Justice for American people. We’ve always been able to count on the idea that the government is instituting or enforcing the law without fear of favor. But now what we’re seeing is the Department systematic — or the administration — systematically gutting the prosecutions of civil rights cases of public corruption, cases of white collar crime and of foreign bribery or lobbying. Those five areas of prosecutions are what give the public confidence that even the rich, even the powerful, even foreign lobbyists will be held to account if they commit crimes. But through memos issued by Attorney General Bondi, firing or reassignment of prosecutors and the Department’s high profile decisions, American people no longer have confidence that the law will be applied consistently to everyone regardless of their wealth or power. And that is devastating.

 

SREENIVASAN: Just recently in Minneapolis, we had six career prosecutors say that they resigned. And I have to, I have to say that they said that, because that there is some conflicting information. The Department of Justice says there were no resignations at all, that these people were fired. That their concern was as they say that look, they were set, tasked to investigate the widow of Renee Good — the Minneapolis woman who was shot and killed by an ICE agent  — while declining to pursue a civil rights investigation against the ICE agent who shot Ms. Good, right? And I wonder what does that tell you about what’s happening in the Department when you have lawyers, at least groups at a time, deciding to resign or leave?

 

GORDON: The Department’s losing some of its best, most ethical, most experienced lawyers. And the problem here to be clear, isn’t the fact that they were asked to investigate the wife of Renee Good. The problem is that they were asked, or told, or directed not to investigate ICE Officer Jonathan Ross, right? The mantra of the Department of Justice is to investigate and follow the facts and the law wherever they lead, without fear or favor. That shooting in Minneapolis requires that the Department of Justice lawyers investigate all of it. That a civil rights investigation occur to determine whether or not Renee Good’s civil rights were violated. 

 

It is possible that a good faith investigation of that shooting would result in a decision not to charge Officer Ross with violating her civil rights. It is possible that a good faith investigation of Renee Good’s wife would lead to a conclusion that she had done something to criminally obstruct the ICE officers. But that’s not what was directed to occur here. The civil rights lawyers in that office were directed to not even look at whether that shooting was an unauthorized use of force, effectively a murder, not even look at it, and instead to target Renee Good’s wife. And so I am proud of those six prosecutors. I’m proud to call them colleagues in the Department of Justice. Because their actions show me that they cared about their oath to defend the Constitution and to enforce the law without fear of favor, more than they cared about their own personal security or jobs.

 

SREENIVASAN: You know, someone watching our conversation might Google you and say, Wait, this is a guy who was fired while he was handling major cases, including the January 6th riders. What happened? And then you chose to sue because you felt like you were unfairly or illegally fired. What happened in that and where’s the case now?

 

GORDON: Sure. So I was the senior trial counsel for January 6th prosecutions for two years from 2021 through 2023. And then at the end of 2023, I returned to my home office in Tampa, Florida where I prosecuted white collar cases, public corruption, cyber crime, et cetera. I’d been prosecuting those cases for 18 months, when in June 2025, I was given a letter indicating that I was being fired and no reason was given whatsoever, nor any warning nor any due process. Regular folks might be at will employees in their jobs. I certainly understand that. But prosecutors like me are actually covered by a law, the Civil Service Reform Act, that means you can’t just fire us at will. We’re not some people that can be fired without due process, without notice, without any merit-based cause. And so my firing was illegal. 

 

It was obviously retribution for my work prosecuting January 6th cases. And there have been news reports since then that have indicated that’s the case. I sued because what the government did was illegal. The Department of Justice, the very part of the government that is tasked with enforcing the law, was breaking it to fire me. And while I had spent almost nine years fighting to uphold the law by representing the government, by fighting for the government in court, I didn’t change. The government did. So in order for me to continue fighting for the law to uphold it, it required that now I go against the government and I sue them. 

 

So that’s what I did. The case is ongoing. The government has moved to dismiss it, arguing that I’m in the wrong court, that I didn’t have the right to sue where I did. And my lawyers have responded and said that the government is wrong, that the government has shut down the other avenues to bring this kind of claim. And so the judge had the right to hear it. So right now it’s pending and the judge is deciding whether she even has the power to hear the case, not just whether or not I was legally fired.

 

SREENIVASAN: You know, for the record, we reached out to the DOJ about your case, and as of now when we’re speaking, they have not yet responded with any comments. What went through your mind when you saw the president pardon everyone from January 6th?

 

GORDON: It was shocking to me and devastating. Just eight days before the president was inaugurated, Vice President JD Vance, or incoming Vice President JD Vance, was asked about the possibility that the president might issue pardons to January 6th rioters. And Vice President Vance himself said, Well, of course you wouldn’t pardon people who assaulted law enforcement officers. Of course you’re not gonna do that. And yet, that’s exactly what President Trump did. We expected him to pardon the misdemeanors. But pardoning people who assaulted law enforcement officers, who stole things from the Capitol, who plotted to overthrow the government, who were convicted of seditious conspiracy — a plot to overthrow the government — pardoning them, just throws the country into chaos. It shows that nothing matters if you support the president, shows that the president does not back law enforcement. That it’s okay for them to be assaulted if the people assaulting them say that they support the president, and that’s why they’re doing it. Those law enforcement officers are heroes. We should be having a parade for them every January 6th. Instead, they have to deal with the fact that they protected Congress, they put their bodies on the line, and those same members of Congress are willing to not only sit by while they’re pardoned, but also refuse to even hang a plaque honoring them.

 

SREENIVASAN: When you look at how the administration has treated the people who went into the Capitol on January 6th versus calling Renee Good a domestic terrorist, it seems to be totally different standards here.

 

GORDON: It does. The administration seems to be supporting a rule of “obey or die” when it comes to law enforcement and they appear to be painting Renee Good as someone who deserved what she got. I don’t see how that viewpoint holds consistent with pardoning January 6th rioters who assaulted law enforcement officers. For example, Officer Michael Fanone was tased in the base of his skull. Officer Aqullino Gonnell was crushed and had his shoulder ripped to the point that ligaments were damaged and he can’t lift his arm above his head or play basketball with his son. His career was ended. Officer Daniel Hodges crushed between two doors. In any of those situations, those officers could have drawn their weapons. But they didn’t ’cause they understood that if they did, it could have instigated a massacre. I don’t see how the administration can celebrate the pardon and call January 6th rioters persecuted political prisoners or hostages, and yet view Renee Good as a domestic terrorist who deserved what she got.

 

SREENIVASAN: Former assistant U.S. attorney and former federal prosecutor, Mike Gordon. Thanks so much for your time.

 

GORDON: Thank you for having me. I appreciate it.