By Sarah N. Lynch
WASHINGTON, Dec 16 (Reuters) – A top federal prosecutor who presided over President Donald Trump’s crackdown on violent crime in the nation’s capital has been demoted, according to four sources familiar with the matter.
Jonathan Hornok, who was tapped to oversee criminal prosecutions for the federal prosecutor’s office in Washington, remains on staff but is no longer in a supervisory role, one of the people added.
Reuters could not immediately determine the reason for his removal, which occurred late last week. A spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s office declined to comment. Hornok did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Hornok was promoted to criminal chief by former Interim U.S. Attorney Ed Martin, a close ally of Trump, and remained on the job after Jeanine Pirro took over as top prosecutor of the Washington office.
In August, when Trump’s Washington D.C. crime crackdown started, Hornok ordered federal prosecutors to charge every case federally, rather than bringing lesser charges in D.C.’s superior court.
That approach has arguably backfired, leading grand juries to decline to issue indictments in some cases.
In one case, a jury acquitted a former Justice Department employee on misdemeanor assault charges for hurling a sandwich at a federal agent. The case went to trial after a grand jury previously declined to indict the man on felony charges.
In the early days of the crackdown, the federal court and the U.S. Attorney’s office, which has lost dozens of lawyers since January, struggled with the new mandate to charge every case it could. As a result, some defendants languished in jail longer than they should have, leading one magistrate judge to criticize the office for trampling on people’s civil liberties.
A spokesman for the office said that since March, Pirro has brought on 84 new assistant U.S. attorneys, along with other staff.
Hornok, who often sports a bowtie, did not have supervisory experience prior to being promoted to criminal chief. He rose to the role after his predecessor Denise Cheung resigned under pressure by Martin after she declined to launch a criminal probe of a government contract awarded by the Environmental Protection Agency under former President Joe Biden.
Hornok garnered some attention early on after George Foote, a lawyer for the Institute of Peace, said Hornok threatened him with a criminal investigation after the institute rebuffed efforts by the Department of Government Efficiency to enter the building, according to a sworn court statement submitted by Foote.
(Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch; additional reporting by Andrew Goudsward; editing by Andy Sullivan and Chizu Nomiiyama )
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