'Despicable and illegal': DOJ prosecutor has 'no regrets' after firing by Trump

One career prosecutor at the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) who worked on cases involving defendants who attacked the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021 was recently fired by Attorney General Pam Bondi. Before leaving his position, the prosecutor wrote a scathing letter that fired several parting shots at President Donald Trump's administration.

NBC News' Ryan J. Reilly reported Friday that prosecutor Andrew Floyd, who led the Capitol Siege section of the DOJ and worked out of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of his Columbia (which is now led by interim U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro) was one of three January 6 prosecutors who were recently fired. Before making his official exit, Floyd both extolled the work of his colleagues and assailed the "despicable and illegal acts" committed by January 6 defendants (whom Trumppardoned on the first day of his second term).

Floyd pulled heavily from a speech by former President Teddy Roosevelt in his letter known as "The Man in the Arena" but officially titled "Citizenship in a Democracy." In that speech, Roosevelt said it was "not the critic who counts" but rather people who are "actually in the arena" who he contrasted with "cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat."

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According to Floyd, senior-level DOJ prosecutors had a tradition of sending that speech to assistant U.S. attorneys who lost cases. In his letter to his former colleagues, Floyd wrote that the gesture "made new prosecutors feel seen as they toiled, for long hours and often unsuccessfully, on difficult cases while trying to uphold the rule of law in this city."

"I lost a few trials and each time I received that email I was reminded why I went into court in the first place. It was not winning that mattered, but the fight for justice," Floyd's letter read. "My days of entering the arena with you are over. I also have no regrets."

"I know from my communications with you over the years that the people in this building do not keep quiet and are not timid. You pursue justice. You enter the arena. Win or lose,” he added. “From now on, although I can no longer join you, I’ll be on the sidelines cheering you on."

Floyd's letter came on the heels of a separate open letter by Andrew Feinberg, a former FBI official who resigned this week. Reilly reported that Feinberg was given the choice of either being fired or leaving of his own volition, due to his friendship with someone on FBI Director Kash Patel's "enemies list." Feinberg wrote that while he loved his country and the Constitution "with a fervor that mere language will not allow me to articulate," he lamented that the Trump administration would no longer allow him to serve his country.

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Click here to read Reilly's full report in NBC.