FILE – New York attorney general Letitia James ( AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)
A conservative lawyer who has denied allegations she took part in the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot has been appointed acting US attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, following the ouster of the office’s chief on Friday. Mary “Maggie” Cleary informed staff of her appointment in an email on Saturday, writing, “While this appointment was unexpected, I am humbled to be joining your ranks,” according to the Associated Press. Cleary takes over from Erik Siebert, who was forced out amid a Trump administration push to bring criminal charges against New York attorney general Letitia James over alleged mortgage fraud. Trump later insisted he had fired Siebert, rejecting the latter’s claims of a resignation. The investigation into James, a long-time Trump adversary, centers on paperwork discrepancies tied to her Brooklyn townhouse and a Virginia property. The Justice Department has yet to bring charges, and her attorneys have dismissed the inquiry as politically motivated retaliation.Who is Mary Cleary?Cleary returned to the Justice Department recently as senior counsel in the criminal division after serving as a prosecutor in the Culpeper Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Office. She also worked as deputy secretary of public safety under Virginia’s Republican governor Glenn Youngkin and later in the office of the state’s attorney general, Jason Miyares.Earlier this year, Cleary wrote in The Spectator World that she had been “wrongly identified” in a photo as being on Capitol grounds during the January 6 riot, while she was a federal prosecutor in Virginia. “Everyone knew I was a conservative. It was all over my resume. I was in leadership in my local Republican Committee. But I had not gone to the Capitol that day,” she wrote. She described being placed on administrative leave and questioned by agents before later being cleared to return to work. “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,” Cleary added.
