Matthew Graves, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia and lead Jan. 6 prosecutor, is stepping down from his job.
After serving in the role for more than three years, Graves announced on Monday he would be resigning as D.C.’s top prosecutor at the start of 2025, saying that “serving as the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia has been the honor of a lifetime.”
“I am deeply thankful to congresswoman Holmes Norton for recommending me, to President Biden for nominating me, and to Attorney General Garland for placing his trust in me,” Graves said in a statement.
Graves’s resignation date is effective Jan. 16, 2025, four days before President-elect Donald Trump takes the oath of office.
Over the past four years, the Department of Justice, through Graves’s office, has charged nearly 1,500 people in connection to the Jan. 6, 2021, incident at the U.S. Capitol.
Graves’s resignation comes as Trump slammed the DOJ for its actions against many of the citizens prosecuted. The president-elect has argued many of the people facing charges are being unfairly targeted compared to other violent protesters, such as some during the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests.
Top Trump allies, including Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), reacted to the news Graves is stepping down on Monday by saying “he’s resigning before President Trump has the chance to fire him.”
Greene is among Graves’s fiercest critics, many of whom have suggested the Jan. 6 riot was fueled by “feds posing as MAGA” and expressed concern that the constitutional rights of the “political prisoners” are being violated as they are held in reportedly inhumane conditions.
Trump suggested during an NBC interview earlier this month that he would pardon “the people that did very little” on the first day he takes office.
Saying he has heard the D.C. Department of Correctional facilities where Jan. 6 detainees are being held is a “hell hole,” Trump said, “Those people have suffered long and hard … they arrested an old woman because she — I don’t think she did anything. They don’t even know what she did.”
“Their lives have been destroyed. And yet, in Portland, where they burned down half the city … They attacked the courthouse … Seattle, they took over a big chunk of the city,” he continued. “It looked like World War II. Nothing happened.”
Graves, who was appointed by President Joe Biden, has denied accusations he weaponized the DOJ against people connected with Jan. 6, saying, ”We’ve seen defendants in the January 6th [cases] take full advantage of all the protections afforded under the constitution.”
Former prosecutor Anna Wallace told the Econo Times Grave’s resignation could “disrupt” the federal government’s cases against Jan. 6 detainees.
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“This resignation at such a pivotal time could disrupt ongoing investigations and prosecutions, potentially weakening the accountability process for January 6,” she said.
Bridget Fitzpatrick, the principal assistant U.S. attorney, is set to become the acting U.S. attorney when Graves leaves office.
