Jonathan Gross, a former political appointee at the Justice Department, has publicly criticized the department’s leadership and described internal efforts he says have been ineffective or politically driven. Gross, who left the department earlier this year, gave a wide-ranging interview to conservative influencer Brandon Straka and has posted comments on social media accusing acting Attorney General Todd Blanche of “sabotage,” careerism and producing “very sloppy” work.
Gross joined the DOJ’s civil rights division last summer after representing several defendants charged in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. A rabbi-turned-lawyer with little prior criminal-defense experience, Gross drew attention for his outspoken opposition to those prosecutions and for an earlier controversial comparison of the effort to the Holocaust. That profile led to his recruitment into the administration and into a small internal unit known as the “Weaponization Working Group,” created under former Attorney General Pam Bondi to examine claims that federal law enforcement had been politicized under the Biden administration.
Gross says the working group — which included Jared Wise, a former FBI agent who also joined the administration after Jan. 6 — arrived with expectations of probing alleged abuses in the Jan. 6 investigation but quickly fell short. In his interview, Gross told Straka the group had “no budget, no staff” and met far less frequently than anticipated. He and others participated in discussions about drafting a report on alleged mistreatment of Jan. 6 defendants, but more than a year later the department has released no report or findings.
Prosecutors who handled the Jan. 6 cases have denied misconduct and argue the working group is a partisan effort to punish officials who prosecuted the attack, which injured many police officers and threatened the democratic process. Gross and Wise have both since left the administration and publicly expressed frustration that the working group has shifted focus; a source familiar with the unit told NPR it is currently concentrating on reports of alleged anti-Christian bias and purported targeting of people who protested at local school board meetings.
That shift has angered many former Jan. 6 defendants who continue to press for what some describe as the three R’s: reparations, revenge against prosecutors and judges, and revelations they hope will validate their claims that the riot was a setup.
Gross says his tenure unraveled because of his persistent advocacy for Jan. 6 defendants and others he believed had been targeted. He says he repeatedly emailed supervisors about cases that deserved renewed scrutiny and received no response until he was told to stop. The turning point, Gross says, came after he escorted former defendants into DOJ headquarters to meet with Trump administration officials about their cases. He says his supervisor, Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon, told him, “You can’t do this.” Gross was put on paid leave, reassigned to menial tasks and effectively demoted before leaving the department.
Since his departure, Gross has sharply criticized Todd Blanche, alleging Blanche undermined Bondi to position himself to become acting attorney general and then moved forward with high-profile indictments. Gross has specifically called the Southern Poverty Law Center indictment “a very sloppy job” and predicted the charges would be thrown out. The department, and Blanche, have denied Gross’s characterizations; Blanche told CBS News he was not “auditioning” for the job and had served as deputy attorney general for more than a year.
Gross also said he fears potential retaliation from former colleagues but said he is willing to speak out. The Justice Department did not respond to requests for comment in the reports about his remarks.