Washington: The lawyer Alexis Loeb about Trump's revenge

The new Trump administration is trying to renounce the federal state in many ways. But no dismissals are of greater importance to the rule of law in the United States than the purges at the Ministry of Justice in Washington.

Around 30 prosecutors have been fired after Trump's return to the White House. Their crime is that they had led investigations into the storming of capitol. The raids are now continuing on the federal police FBI.

« It's a dangerous situation, » says lawyer Alexis Loeb.

Until October last year she was the prosecutor's colleague and supervisor – as the Deputy Head of the US Department of Justice for the section on the rally in Congress on January 6, 2021.

She quit just before the election last year, to become a partner in a law firm in San Francisco. But many of her employees did not have the opportunity to go voluntarily.

– It is about many young people, several who have young children or are expecting children. Many were affiliated with a unit that handles local crime in the Washingtond district. They have to pay a personal price because they have done their jobs. It shakes about confidence in the Ministry of Justice, she says.

During February and March, the struggle between the White House and the courts has escalated. Decisions from judges have blocked the new Trump administration's decision on everything from deportations and the dismantling of the state apparatus to the prohibitions against transgender people in the military. When Trump threatened to put a judge to the national law the other day, an unusual reprimand came from the Supreme Court's chief judge John Roberts.

The Ministry of Justice has Tried to put a stop to the corruption investigations against New York's scandal -ridden Mayor Eric Adams – a Democrat who allied with Trump in the debate about migration.

– Things happen that you couldn't imagine every day now, says Alexis Loeb.

She believes that last year's decision that the president has immunity for many of his actions has affected Trump.

– I do not think he is particularly concerned about whether it appears that he dismisses people for political reasons. I do not think he worries that he will be held accountable for his actions.

Alexis Loeb was a new two -child mother and parental leave from the Ministry of Justice on January 6, 2021. She followed the storm of capitol on the mobile screen in the home.

– I was in shock, like so many others. I remember uncertainty: When will this end? How is this going to end?

The rally in the congress was far from the first protest against the bid's election victory in the 2020 presidential election.

– The rhetoric was there before. But this was an attack that interrupted a peaceful change of power and forced congress members on the run. The violence was on a completely different level.

Alexis Loeb came to Spend three and a half years and thousands of working hours demanding responsibility for the storm. In total, around 1,500 Trump supporters were drawn to trial. Including members of militant groups such as Oath Keepers, Proud Boys and Three Percenters.

Most people were pardoned when Donald Trump returned to the White House at the end of January.

Alexis Loeb has been thinking a lot about how that amnesty affects the victims of the attack – in many cases the police force on capitol and local Washington police.

– We had police officers who testified in trial after trial. They had to spend hours reliving what happened, returning to the attacks, with thoughts of friends who were injured or died. Some cried. It is terrible to think about them now, says Alexis Loeb.

When talking to people who were on site at Capitol – and I have met several – you often hear stories about how they were admitted by the police and that they only took one round in the premises. They want to give the impression that the Ministry of Justice has engaged in a witch hunt for innocent citizens who at most committed illegal infringement.

Many of the Trump supporters believe in that propaganda.

Alexis Loeb would wish That they took part in the entire process, from the first window pane was crushed to how hostile rebellion makers surrounded and overwhelmed police officers at Capitol,

– I would like to show the movies. Not only from the surveillance cameras but also from the police's body cameras and the defendants' own videos. I would also point out all convicting judgments from judges of different political colors and jurors with different backgrounds. And I would highlight acknowledgment from many of the defendants, she says.

A few weeks ago, former Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio and several of his fellow prisoners in triumph returned to Gräslätt outside the capitol. They plan to sue the state.

Tarrio dismissed those who worry about more political violence after the pardon.

« They are a bunch of liar, » he told DN.

Alexis Loeb has himself Been a target for threatening messages online, before and after the pardon. She fades down the risks for her own part – it belongs to the job as a prosecutor. But she warns of the consequences for the United States.

– It is clear that I hope that those who have been pardoned are grateful that they have been given a second chance to live law -abiding lives. But I worry about what it means for this country that we have now released criminals, many of them violent, who are in huge debt to the president, she says.

– You just have to watch their own statements and videos. Do they feel that they are free to commit violent deeds for his sake now? What does it mean for the development of political violence in this country?

Donald Trump was charged with his role in the storming of capitol, but prosecutors never had a trial. After the election, the federal goal was closed and the Ministry of Justice's special investigator Jack Smith left his post. Biden's Minister of Justice Merrick Garland has been criticized for the process going so slowly.

Alexis Loeb was not involved in the decisions about Trump, and does not want to comment on them. But she takes the question of what prosecutors could have done very seriously.

– When I look back, I can also ask myself if we should have done more to reach out with the evidence from the storm to the American people. Maybe we would have published more material, not just acknowledgments and judgments and punishments but also statements, she says.

But she doesn't think that the investigations and trials were in vain.

– What remains is a great historical documentation of what actually happened that day. We have been able to identify who was behind the attacks and what was their driving forces. It will continue.