Jan. 6 federal prosecutor fired by Pam Bondi quotes Theodore Roosevelt in passionate farewell letter

WASHINGTON — One of three career federal prosecutors fired by Attorney General Pam Bondi last week has written a passionate goodbye to his colleagues, praising them for their willingness to “enter the arena” and encouraging them to not be timid amid ongoing threats to their work

WASHINGTON — One of three career federal prosecutors fired by Attorney General Pam Bondi last week has written a passionate goodbye to his colleagues, praising them for their willingness to “enter the arena” and encouraging them to not be timid amid ongoing threats to their work.

Andrew Floyd had been a leader in the Capitol Siege Section and stayed with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia, now headed by interim U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro. In an email sent Thursday, he expressed pride in seeking justice for “despicable and illegal acts against our brothers and sisters in uniform” who were victimized during the Jan. 6, 2021, attack.

“They entered the arena and were assaulted. Later, they were re-victimized. Called crisis actors, vilified, threatened, and told that what they experienced did not happen,” Floyd wrote in the email seen by NBC News.

Floyd’s email cited a quote from a 1910 Theodore Roosevelt's speech commonly known as “The Man in the Arena,” which he said senior federal prosecutors would send to assistant U.S. attorneys who lost a case. Officially titled “Citizenship in a Republic,” Roosevelt said it is "not the critic who counts," but those who are “actually in the arena,” noting that their place “shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”

Receiving that message, Floyd wrote, "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."