{"id":242475,"date":"2025-09-20T22:39:18","date_gmt":"2025-09-20T22:39:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/242475\/"},"modified":"2025-09-20T22:39:18","modified_gmt":"2025-09-20T22:39:18","slug":"conservative-lawyer-is-new-top-federal-prosecutor-for-office-probing-letitia-james-after-resignation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/242475\/","title":{"rendered":"Conservative lawyer is new top federal prosecutor for office probing Letitia James after resignation"},"content":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 A conservative lawyer who has said she was falsely accused of being at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, has been tapped to serve as the top federal prosecutor for the Virginia office that was thrown into turmoil when its U.S. attorney was pushed out on Friday. <\/a><\/p>\n

Mary \u201cMaggie\u201d Cleary said in an email to staff on Saturday that she had been named acting U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, according to a copy viewed by The Associated Press. <\/p>\n

She replaces Erik Siebert, who resigned amid a push by Trump administration officials to bring criminal charges against New York Attorney General Letitia James<\/a> in a mortgage fraud investigation. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhile this appointment was unexpected, I am humbled to be joining your ranks,\u201d Cleary told employees in the email. <\/p>\n

Cleary will take over an office in tumult over political pressure by administration officials to criminally charge James, a longtime foe of President Donald Trump. The investigation stems from alleged paperwork discrepancies on James\u2019 Brooklyn townhouse and a Virginia home. <\/p>\n

The Justice Department has spent months conducting the investigation but has yet to bring charges, and there\u2019s been no indication that prosecutors have managed to uncover any degree of incriminating evidence necessary to secure an indictment. James\u2019 lawyers have vigorously denied any allegations and characterized the investigation as an act of political revenge.<\/p>\n

While Siebert said in an email to colleagues Friday evening that he had submitted his resignation, Trump said in a social media post: \u201cHe didn\u2019t quit, I fired him!\u201d Trump noted he was backed by the state\u2019s two Democratic senators, Mark Warner and Tim Kaine, adding: \u201cNext time let him go in as a Democrat, not a Republican.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cleary recently rejoined the Justice Department as a senior counsel in the criminal division after working as a prosecutor in the Culpepper Commonwealth\u2019s Attorneys Office. She also worked as deputy secretary of public safety in Virginia Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin\u2019s administration and later served in Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares\u2019 office. <\/p>\n

Cleary wrote in an article for The Spectator World earlier this year about being wrongly identified in a photo as having been present on Capitol grounds during the Jan. 6 riot. Cleary, who at the time was working as a federal prosecutor in the Western District of Virginia, wrote: \u201cEveryone knew I was a conservative. It was all over my resume. I was in leadership in my local Republican Committee. But I had not gone to the Capitol that day.\u201d <\/p>\n

She described being placed on administrative leave and interviewed by agents before later being cleared to return to work. <\/p>\n

\u201cIn the last four years, I\u2019ve been somewhat cautious about sharing my experience, but now, while Donald Trump is president, I feel emboldened to finally tell how, I, too, was targeted politically,\u201d Cleary wrote. <\/p>\n

At the time the article was published in May, she was interviewing to serve as U.S. attorney for the Western District of Virginia. Cleary said she wanted that job \u201cto end this type of treatment.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 A conservative lawyer who has said she was falsely accused of being at the U.S.…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":242476,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3],"tags":[27603,1578,1226,69,128419,820,57,12473,4228,129349,24980,128421,405,403,50,80,8131,94,61,67,370,132,68,906,93],"class_list":{"0":"post-242475","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"category-us","9":"tag-2021-united-states-capitol-riot","10":"tag-associated-press","11":"tag-conservatism","12":"tag-donald-trump","13":"tag-erik-siebert","14":"tag-fraud","15":"tag-general-news","16":"tag-glenn-youngkin","17":"tag-indictments","18":"tag-jason-miyares","19":"tag-letitia-james","20":"tag-mark-warner","21":"tag-new-york","22":"tag-new-york-city","23":"tag-news","24":"tag-politics","25":"tag-tim-kaine","26":"tag-u-s-department-of-justice","27":"tag-u-s-news","28":"tag-united-states","29":"tag-united-states-government","30":"tag-unitedstates","31":"tag-us","32":"tag-virginia","33":"tag-washington-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115239030938699912","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242475","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=242475"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242475\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/242476"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=242475"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=242475"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=242475"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}