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January 29, 2021 was my ninth day as an Assistant United States Attorney for the Western District of Virginia. It was my dream job. After going through the rigorous application process, including an extensive background check, I was offered the role in November 2020 and took an oath to the Constitution of the United States on January 19, 2021. It was the proudest day of my life. I wore my grandfather’s pin commemorating his fifty years of service to the FBI on my first day and sent a picture to my parents of my swearing in.
I was working from my house in Culpeper, since the office maintained a hybrid schedule post-Covid. I had a Zoom meeting set up for the afternoon with a member of the Office’s leadership. Little did I know I was about to get a knock on my door.
Someone (still unknown to me) had contacted the Roanoke Times and alleged that they had a photo of me on the Capitol Grounds on January 6, holding a fractured piece of the Speaker Nancy Pelosi sign. The photo was circulated.
Everyone knew I was a conservative. It was all over my résumé. I was in leadership in my local Republican Committee. But I had not gone to the Capitol that day. The girl in the photo looked nothing like me. Aside from sharing my race, she had virtually no common features to me.
That did not matter.
In a moment, I was notified that I was being placed on administrative leave from the office. My afternoon meeting, and all of my other meetings that day, were promptly canceled. On my personal cell, I received a call from a 202 number. It was an investigator from the Department of Justice. They confirmed my address and let me know they would be at my home in about ninety minutes.
I panicked. I put on a suit and, using my prosecutorial training, started to compile my best case. I was not at the Capitol on January 6. I was home in Culpeper. But how could I prove that? Was I going to go to jail? I collected my phone bill from January 6, 2021. I pulled my Peloton ride. I got my credit card statement to show the desk that I had purchased from the Target in Culpeper.
Then, the knock on my front door. Two agents with DoJ Office of Internal Investigations came and sat at my dining room table. As they read me the Garrity Warning (my notification of rights as a federal employee – which sounded a lot like Miranda), my heart began to pound. I had not done anything wrong. I had not committed a crime.
When the agents came and knocked on my door and saw me, and realized I was not the girl in the photo with the Pelosi sign, surely they would walk away? Instead, they spent nearly two hours investigating something that was not a crime – namely my presence in Washington, DC on January 6. At the end of nearly two hours of questioning, and recording my responses, the agents left. A few hours later, I received a call that I had been cleared to go back to work.
I never received anything in writing.
Now, four years later, I have applied to be the US Attorney for that same district. I completed the extensive application released by the senators, interviewed with a panel of former US attorneys, both Virginia senators and more recently, a panel chosen by the congressional delegation (to include two former congressmen).
With Virginia’s two Democratic senators so heavily involved in the process, it’s clear to me that my Republican bonafides are working against me once again. During the interview with Senators Kaine and Warner, I was asked more questions about my political stance on immigration than about my own prosecution experience. I was honest, and I don’t think they liked my answers.
In the last four years, I’ve 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.
I want to be US Attorney for the Western District of Virginia to end this type of treatment. President Trump needs attorneys in these roles who understand how to identify this behavior and end it during this administration.
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