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A Former Federal Prosecutor on Why He Quit Donald Trump’s Department of Justice

The New Yorker Radio Hour·Mar 31, 2026·22:40

About this Episode

Thousands of federal prosecutors have been fired or have resigned from their roles since Pam Bondi took over as Attorney General. She has made no secret of weaponizing the Justice Department to pursue Donald Trump’s vendettas. One of those prosecutors is Troy Edwards, who quit a senior national-security position in the Eastern District of Virginia. As an assistant U.S. attorney in DC, Edwardshad won convictions against members of the Oath Keepers for January 6th-related offenses. Edwards is also the son-in-law of the former F.B.I. director James Comey, and, when the Justice Department indicted Comey on grounds widely seen as flimsy, Edwards knew he had reached his red line. (The charges were quickly dismissed, though without prejudice.) The New Yorker’s legal correspondent Ruth Marcus talks with Edwards about his decision to leave, how he broke it to his family, and why he thinks other prosecutors should not follow his lead.

Further reading:

“Pam Bondi’s Contempt for Congress,” by Ruth Marcus
“The Flimsy, Dangerous Indictment of James Comey,” by Ruth Marcus
“Pam Bondi’s Power Play,” by Ruth Marcus

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This is The New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker.

This is The New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick.

Since the start of Donald Trump's second term,

it's estimated that over 300,000 federal workers have been forced out of their jobs

or have left voluntarily.

And notable among them were thousands of federal prosecutors in the Justice Department.

These are generally ambitious, driven lawyers,

who could have been making much more money in the private sector.

The Attorney General Pam Bondy has made no bones about putting the Justice Department on political missions

and quite a few career prosecutors just could not abide that,

including a man by the name of Troy Edwards.

I remember it's still seared into my memory.

My dad would wake up in the morning at about four something in the morning every morning

and iron his uniform.

That hiss of that iron is still seared into my memory

because I remember thinking, man, I want a job where I get to go serve

and I care so much about it that I'd wake up at four in the morning and iron my uniform.

And the National Security Division gave me the chance to do that.

As an Assistant U.S. Attorney, Edwards prosecuted major January 6 cases

helping to win convictions against members of the Oathkeepers.

He later served as Deputy Chief of the National Security Section

in the Eastern District of Virginia.

And when he resigned last year, that made headlines.

Partly because Troy Edwards happens to be the son-in-law of James Comey,

the controversial former FBI director who holds a top spot on Donald Trump's enemies list.

Edwards spoke with the New Yorker's legal correspondent Ruth Marcus.

So, Pam Bondy comes in as Attorney General.

She sends out a memo advising you and your fellow prosecutors

that your job is to execute the views of the President of the United States.

The President comes to the Great Hall of Justice

and gives a speech denouncing many things,

including the scum prosecutors who had vindictively gone after him in the previous administration.

What's your response to all of this? What are you thinking?

That we had a job to do.

All of that can play out and be wrong.

And yet, the National Security Section in EDVA,

which I believe is one of the most important in the country, had a job to do.

I had a unit to help supervise that had victims and had dangers to our community

that if we left, then more damage will be done.

EDVA is the Eastern District of Virginia.

Why is EDVA such a central part in the National Security Universe?

Because it has a history of being at the forefront of some of the top national security cases

and has continued to build on that history,

and that history originates from its location,

being near the Pentagon, near the intelligence community,

near the National Security apparatus, such that it is prime location

to investigate these kinds of cases.

So you're watching what's going on at justice, both in US Attorney's offices,

around the country, and at the FBI,

and main justice where people are being, I think, fired willy-nilly,

is the technical term.

Is this what you had been braced for or worse than you had expected?

What I braced for.

I mean, on day one, hundreds of people were pardoned,

including people who violently attacked police officers.

You have to know that something worse is going to happen if that's day one.

I think what I felt was pride at all the instances in which the institution was holding.

And so I think that educates a little bit on how I look back on it.

And what are you thinking of in that regard?

I mean, there are whole US Attorney's offices that are not contributing to certain cases.

There are factions that are walking out instead of engaging in certain conduct.

That is signs of life that the institution is holding,

that the careers know what matters in the department.

They were finding their red lines and you were sticking it out until your red line

kind of slapped you in the face.

But it was like watching a wildfire when you're in a neighborhood

and you see the flames kind of engulfed certain homes around you

and you know an ember may land on your house.

And at some point it landed on ours.

Well, I want to get to that.

But before if I ember landed on your house,

it landed on your sister-in-law's house in the Southern District of New York.

Maureen Comey was an extremely well-regarded federal prosecutor

at the US Attorney's Office in Manhattan.

And she was fired in, I believe it was July of 2025,

with no explanation.

But the explanation that I got in the reporting that I did on this

was that her last name was Comey.

That must have been a pretty shattering moment for your family.

It was for a family that can handle it.

She was and is, frankly, one of the best prosecutors in the country,

although I tease her that the Southern District of New York

has a rival in the Eastern District of Virginia.

And I am very proud that she is engaged in the litigation she is engaged in

by assuming the administration for doing what was unlawful and terminating her.

She is one of the relatively few people I think who has filed suit

over her improper dismissal.

That's right, and it's so important that she's doing that

because it allows the process to work out

where we will establish precedent that this is not okay.

And it will pave the road for others to travel to show that this is not okay.

And are you worried by the way when your sister-in-law is fired

that maybe these people are smart enough to figure out

that there is another Comey in the building?

Yes, of course, that crossed my mind.

And in large part, it was because if it happened unexpectedly,

it may damage our cases that I'm on or damage national security,

not because I'm special, but because I may be involved in a case

that it'd be hard to pass on if I lose my clearance immediately.

And so, of course, that was a concern.

So, and as that is going on, the president is invading

against James Comey.

He's issuing edicts on truth social that I guess

are supposed to be private to Pam Bondy,

but he publishes them for the world to see,

to say that he wants to see Comey indicted,

that he wants to see Leticia James,

the New York Attorney General indicted for mortgage fraud,

Eric Seabird, the US Attorney,

with experience as a career prosecutor,

it's been reported, says I cannot find the case here.

He either leaves or is fired by the president,

depending on which rendition of the facts that you believe,

but it doesn't really matter because he's gone,

he is replaced by insurance lawyer Lindsey Hall again,

not a career prosecutor.

You actually, I think, went to court

to see the indictment returned.

That's right.

Would just describe that moment.

There was a bit of an out-of-body experience for me.

I remember wondering what was going to happen.

I had no role in it.

And so, I was in the public part of the courtroom

to wait and see if the grand jury would return an indictment.

And when they did, and they announced...

This is kind of late in the evening.

Yes, that's right.

That's six or seven in the evening.

And I remember, you know,

leadership walks in,

and the grand jury walks in,

the four person,

and the magistrate judge holds the hearing

and when they announced James Comey's name,

it was my line.

And there was no calculating,

no thinking, how to do it.

It was, get back to my office,

pack up, and leave.

You literally went back to your office that night.

That's right.

And packed your things.

That's right.

And you wrote a very brief resignation letter.

What did it say?

That I resigned effective immediately

to uphold my oath to the Constitution and country.

And it was upholding your oath

because it's just a lab...

Now that you're able to elaborate, elaborate on that.

Yeah, I find it incumbent upon all of us

who take that oath to use it as a touchstone

for everything we do.

Every case, every investigation

is upholding this oath.

If I stayed in my view,

it would not be upholding my oath

because I would not be standing up for fact and law,

which is what I did for almost 10 years in the courtroom.

And so to uphold it, I needed to leave.

I'm doing it through the lens of trying to stand up for my oath

and call out what's happening to our institution

and our Constitution.

And so I felt like the first step

in doing that was leaving when that happened.

And why is that?

Because honestly, I'm just going to give you

a little bit of a hard time here.

You've looked at other situations

where the Department of Justice

has interfered in cases,

ordered cases dropped, for example,

in terms of the prosecution of Mayor Eric Adams in New York

over the objections of serious experienced prosecutors.

Is this one a red line because

of your personal connection

and you know the charges not to be fair?

Or is it a red line because

it's simply your professional judgment

that this indictment does not pass muster?

Both.

It's hard to disentangle the deep love I have for my family

and the deep love that I have for this institution.

And so engaging in a hypothetical where I find

which strand was worse or animating my decision more

is difficult.

But it was a combination of knowing close-up

what was happening here was wrong

because of my relationship to my family.

But also knowing that the President had just called

for the prosecution of his perceived enemies

and now it's my office that's involved in doing it.

And the role that I had as a supervisor

played a big role, a big part of why I left

because I started realizing that if I come back the next day

then it is somehow some silent ascent to my unit

that this was okay.

Even though you are in the national security space,

this was in a different space.

I suppose you could have sliced the salami

in a different way though it's getting pretty thin

at that point.

And everyone has again their own red lines

and we need good people in there to do the work they do.

I could not look at my unit in the face

and say that this was okay

and that we continue to put our heads down.

But I wanted them to stay.

And so I thought by leaving it in part

shows them that this is not okay

and gives them a voice that they can't have as the line

and allows them to continue doing the good work they're doing.

I'm a little bit confused by that.

You decide that it's incumbent on you to leave.

The indictment of James Comey

for allegedly making false statements

is one of the flimsiest

and most legally deficient documents that I've ever seen.

I could not figure out looking at this

what his alleged false statement was.

In fact, it was completely incoherent.

But you're saying that you can't tolerate that

as a manager,

but that the foot soldiers

who just keep on going?

Why?

Because the country relies on them.

It's incumbent upon people in the managerial space

or in the supervisory roles

to take those hits and leave.

If everyone left, it would be much worse.

And so in any way,

I could play a role in making sure the line was able to do its work.

That was part of my decision making.

But I don't mean to sit here and say that it was not in some way

my connection to my family.

I think it just means that relationship hit me harder

because I knew the department was after an innocent man.

I can't stand for that.

When you walked into the courtroom that evening

and heard James Comey being the subject of an indictment,

had you known in your guy that that was the end for you?

Had you already made that decision?

I knew.

It's so complicated to disentangle,

but the department had just indicted an innocent man.

And I was very close to that innocent man.

I had met him when I was 17 years old.

And since then, I had grown up going to him

for help on everything,

life, leadership, the department.

And so not knowing anything about the facts

I wasn't involved in the investigation,

any of that, just knowing who he was

and knowing what the department had just done,

both professionally and personally,

was not something I could stand for.

And did you ask his guidance on your decision to leave?

I did not want to talk to him in the lead up to this decision

for a lot of reasons.

And so by that point,

having known him for so long,

I knew what he would say.

That I needed to make sure that I was brave enough

to stand up on principle,

regardless of the consequences.

What was it like for you walking out of there

at what I guess you knew would be the last time?

It was like losing a segment of your heart.

And that's not so corny to say it out loud,

but that's just how it felt.

I really drank the Kool-Aid.

I care about the Department of Justice.

I care about its role in American life.

And I was so happy to be a part of that.

Every day we got to just stand up and do the right thing.

That was awesome.

And stepping away from that,

it had ingrained itself in part of my DNA.

I think it does for everyone who's there.

And every single person who has left

whether forced or not has felt that pain.

And it was hard.

And how did you explain this to your sons?

Yeah, that was hard.

I just feel a little emotional

because as part of doing this,

I was trying to represent what I would want them to do.

And that's the most important job I have.

It sounds so corny, but it means a lot to me.

It's making sure my three boys become men

in this world who are good contributors to society.

They are how old now?

Six, four and two.

And so I've tried to talk to them about that in age-appropriate ways.

And my six-year-old clicked pretty quickly.

When I needed to explain to them what it means to resign.

Because I didn't want to use the word quit.

We've instilled in them that we don't quit.

That we try hard things until their completion.

I tried to explain to them what it means to step away

from something if it's wrong.

And my oldest looked at me and said,

I think I get it.

He said, President Trump fired pop.

I said, yes.

He said, you fired yourself.

And I said, yeah, you get it.

You get it.

The lawyer Troy Edwards,

speaking with the New Yorker's Ruth Marcus,

A Former Federal Prosecutor on Why He Quit Donald Trump’s Department of Justice

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