Top Jan. 6 prosecutor says Trump's Capitol riot pardons signal approval of political violence

WASHINGTON — The federal prosecutor who oversaw the Capitol riot investigation is speaking out about President Donald Trump's mass pardon of Jan. 6 rioters and the Trump administration's targeting of career law enforcement officials who worked cases against the people who attacked the U.S.

WASHINGTON — The federal prosecutor who oversaw the Capitol riot investigation is speaking out about President Donald Trump's mass pardon of Jan. 6 rioters and the Trump administration's targeting of career law enforcement officials who worked cases against the people who attacked the U.S. Capitol.

Greg Rosen, who was the chief of the Capitol Siege Section of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia, called the Justice Department's handling of Jan. 6 cases appropriate, proportional and righteous, noting that hundreds of defendants convicted of misdemeanors ultimately were sentenced to probation.

“The concept that these defendants were railroaded or mistreated is belied by the actual facts,” Rosen said in an interview days after he resigned from the Justice Department. “The reality is every single case was treated with the utmost scrutiny, and every single case required the same level of due process, maximal due process afforded by the U.S. Constitution."

Judges appointed by presidents of both parties adjudicated the cases, and Rosen said the historical record created by the prosecutions "is what will speak volumes, not conjecture and not speculation.”

Rosen, who was previously a prosecutor in Virginia, served at the Justice Department for more than a decade, culminating in his role overseeing the Jan. 6 cases, leading a unit that was shut down when Trump came to office. Trump pardoned roughly 1,500 defendants and commuted the sentences of members of the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers. Those pardons, Rosen said, sent the wrong message to the American public.