Trump's Trials - Fired by Trump's DOJ, lawyers find new purpose

Episode Date: September 12, 2025

Four prosecutors who worked on Capitol riot cases have found a way to continue public service after leaving the Justice Department. They're all colleagues again. NPR's Carrie Johnson tells their story. Support NPR and hear every episode of Trump's Terms sponsor-free with NPR+. Sign up at plus.npr.org.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

I'm Scott Detrow, and this is Trump's Terms from NPR. We're going to be doing all sorts of things. Nobody ever thought was even possible. President Trump has brought back string to the White House. We can't just ignore the president's desires. This will be an entirely different country in a short period of time. Every episode, we bring you one of NPR's latest stories about the 47th president, and now he is trying to remake the federal government.

Today's story starts right after this. I'm Michelle Martin in Washington, D.C. After being fired by the Justice Department this year, a few lawyers who prosecuted capital rioters have found their way back to public service, and P.R.'s Kerry Johnson met them in their office near Washington, D.C. Inside a sunny conference room in Arlington, Virginia, Isha Yassievich describes the unlikely start to her year.

I actually received an invitation to the inauguration as a personal guest, of J.D. and Ushah. Her classmates at Yale Law School are now vice president J.D. Vance and his wife. Yassievich says she could not attend the ceremony. That night, President Trump pardoned almost everyone who stormed the Capitol four years ago. Then, within days, she and other probationary workers at DOJ who prosecuted those defendants were fired. It feels surreal to see my peers be in the leadership of this country and to experience, you know, us as civil servants being cast aside. It was a terrible time to look for a legal job.

Yassi Vich says she could not even get a meeting, despite fielding weekly calls from recruiters before she went to work for the government. The new president slapped executive orders on big law firms that hired people who investigated him. barring attorneys from federal buildings and yanking their security clearances. And I think a lot of firms felt that hiring us would open them up to similar risks. That's Carolyn Jackson.

She also prosecuted January 6 cases before she was fired by email in late January. In all, new leaders at the DOJ terminated more than a dozen prosecutors, just as they prepared to take on new jobs, handling violent crime cases in D.C.'s municipal courts. The White House says the president has enormous power over the federal workforce and can fire those workers under that broad authority. Again, Carolyn Jackson. Recently, I think they brought in 20 JAG officers to D.C. Superior Court because they were so understaffed. And we were looking at each other thinking 15 of us just got fired when we had finished training for that exact job.

You didn't have to bring in JAG officers to do the job that we were ready, willing, and able to do. JAG officers, military lawyers. Sarah Levine, another fired January 6th prosecutor, worked her phone. When we were fired, I reached out and said, hey, I don't suppose you have any positions open. Levine called her former boss. Perissa Deghani Tofti is the elected Democratic Commonwealth Attorney in Arlington, Virginia. And our whole job as prosecutors is to do justice and to do it without fear or favor. And in my mind, there's no better example of people who were doing that than the people

who were working in the capital siege division. Before long, Sarah Levine was back on the job in Virginia. I've handled more than I can count shopliftings at the Pentagon City Mall, but I've also had to deal with some victims that had some very traumatic things happen to them as well. In time, Carolyn Jackson joined the office in Virginia, too. Then Ishiyo Yashivich, finally came Jennifer Blackwell. Blackwell served in the U.S. Justice Department for 20 years. She managed many young attorneys. Watching them leave was one of the hardest days in her career. And not being able to

protect them from what was ultimately coming or to assist them in their efforts and looking for work was really traumatizing. These four women now meet for lunch most days bonded by the trauma of leaving a job they loved. Carolyn Jackson says she can't control what's happening inside the Justice Department now. But she says, we can do good here. We can get through some dark times and some scary times if everybody focuses on doing the good that they can. Gary Johnson, NPR News. Before we wrap up a reminder, you can find more coverage of the Trump administration on the NPR politics podcast, where you can hear NPR's political reporters break down the day's biggest political news with new episodes every weekday afternoon.

Thanks, as always, to our NPR Plus supporters who hear every episode of the show without sponsor messages. You can learn more at plus.npr.org. I'm Scott Detrow. Thanks for listening to Trump's Terms from NPR.