How the Trump administration erased centuries of Justice Department experience

By ERIC TUCKER and ALANNA DURKIN RICHER

WASHINGTON (AP) — Michael Ben’Ary was driving one of his children to soccer practice on an October evening last year when he paused at a red light to check his work phone. He was in the middle of a counterterrorism prosecution so important that President Donald Trump highlighted it in his address to Congress.

Ben’Ary said he was shocked to see his phone had been disabled. He found the explanation later in his personal email account, a letter informing him he had been fired.

A veteran prosecutor, Ben’Ary handled high-profile cases over two decades at the Justice Department, including the murder of a Drug Enforcement Administration agent and a suicide bomb plot targeting the U.S. Capitol. Most recently he was leading the case arising from a deadly attack on American service members in Afghanistan.

Yet the same credentials that enhanced Ben’Ary’s résumé spelled the undoing of his government career.

His termination without explanation came hours after right-wing commentator Julie Kelly told hundreds of thousands of online followers that Ben’Ary had previously served as a senior counse...