By ALANNA DURKIN RICHER and ERIC TUCKER
WASHINGTON (AP) — A top supervisor in the federal prosecutors’ office in Washington said she was forced to resign following a dispute with her boss over a directive that she scrutinize the awarding of a government contract during the Biden administration, according to a letter reviewed by The Associated Press.
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Denise Cheung, a longtime Justice Department official who led the office’s criminal division, wrote in a resignation letter that interim U.S. Attorney Ed Martin ordered her to seek a freeze on assets related to the contract and to issue grand jury subpoenas despite her believing there was an insufficient basis for doing so.
Cheung said Martin asked for her resignation after she resisted his demand to tell a bank not to release any funds from certain accounts because of a criminal investigation. Cheung said she “lacked the legal authority to issue such a letter” to the bank, telling Martin that the “quantum of evidence did not support that action.”
Cheung’s letter recapping her dispute with Martin did not describe the nature of the contract or which agency was involved. A spokesperson for the U.S. attorney’s office declined to comment, and a spokesperson for the Justice Department said failing to follow orders “is not an act of heroism.”
The conflict was the latest to roil the Justice Department and to result in the resignation of a career official who was unwilling to follow a Trump administration mandate.
Cheung did not explain the reason for her departure in an email to her colleagues Tuesday morning, but encouraged them to continue to fulfill their commitment to “pursuing justice without fear or prejudice.”
“I took an oath of office to support and defend the Constitution, and I have executed this duty faithfully during my tenure, which has spanned through numerous Administrations,” Cheung wrote in the email reviewed by The Associated Press. “All that we do is rooted in following the facts and the law and complying with our moral, ethical and legal obligations.”
Cheung’s resignation comes a day after President Donald Trump said he would nominate Martin to serve as D.C.’s U.S. attorney on a permanent basis. Martin, who has advocated for Jan. 6 rioters and backed Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election was stolen, has been leading the office as interim U.S. attorney since last month.
Martin tapped Cheung last month to conduct an internal review of the prosecutor’s use of a felony charge brought against hundreds of Capitol rioters. Calling the use of the charge “a great failure of our office,” Martin ordered attorneys to hand over to Cheung and another supervisor all relevant “files, documents, notes, emails and other information” and directed the supervisors to prepare a report on their findings.
It’s the latest departure from a Justice Department that has been rocked by firings, resignations and forced transfers since Trump’s inauguration in late January.
Last week, Manhattan’s top federal prosecutor, Danielle Sassoon, resigned in protest following a directive from Emil Bove, the Justice Department’s acting No. 2 official, to dismiss corruption charges against former New York Mayor Adams. Several high-ranking officials who oversaw the Justice Department’s public integrity section followed Sassoon in resigning after Bove asked the unit to take over the case.
