WASHINGTON — One of three career federal prosecutors fired by Attorney General Pam Bondi last week has written a passionate goodbye to his colleagues, praising them for their willingness to “enter the arena” and encouraging them to not be timid amid ongoing threats to their work.
Andrew Floyd had been a leader in the Capitol Siege Section and stayed with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia, now headed by interim U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro. In an email sent Thursday, he expressed pride in seeking justice for “despicable and illegal acts against our brothers and sisters in uniform” who were victimized during the Jan. 6, 2021, attack.
“They entered the arena and were assaulted. Later, they were re-victimized. Called crisis actors, vilified, threatened, and told that what they experienced did not happen,” Floyd wrote in the email seen by NBC News.
Floyd’s email cited a quote from a 1910 Theodore Roosevelt's speech commonly known as “The Man in the Arena,” which he said senior federal prosecutors would send to assistant U.S. attorneys who lost a case. Officially titled “Citizenship in a Republic,” Roosevelt said it is "not the critic who counts," but those who are “actually in the arena,” noting that their place “shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”
Receiving that message, Floyd wrote, "made new prosecutors feel seen as they toiled, for long hours and often unsuccessfully, on difficult cases while trying to uphold the rule of law in this city."
"I lost a few trials and each time I received that email I was reminded why I went into court in the first place. It was not winning that mattered, but the fight for justice," he wrote.
"My days of entering the arena with you are over. I also have no regrets," Floyd wrote.
"I know from my communications with you over the years that the people in this building do not keep quiet and are not timid. You pursue justice. You enter the arena. Win or lose,” he wrote. “From now on, although I can no longer join you, I’ll be on the sidelines cheering you on."
Floyd's farewell message was the latest sign of strife within the Justice Department, as career federal law enforcement officials wonder how deep Trump's appointees will go in targeting those involved in prosecuting his allies. In a speech at the Justice Department in March, Trump decried what he called the prior "weaponization" of the Justice Department while calling for the jailing of his perceived opponents.
Floyd's departure is part of what current and former officials describe as a growing "brain drain" at the FBI and Justice Department, as seasoned public servants leave under mounting political pressure and fear of retaliation.
Another federal law enforcement official also wrote this week that he was targeted by bureau leadership because of his friendship with a former FBI employee. Michael Feinberg, who had been assistant special agent in charge of the FBI's Norfolk Field Division national security and intelligence programs, wrote that he was given the option of being demoted or resigning.
In a resignation letter, he said that the FBI had "began to decay" and that he had to comport himself in a manner that would make his soon-to-be born son proud.
"I love my country and our Constitution with a fervor that mere language will not allow me to articulate, and it pains me that my profession will no longer entail being their servant," Feinberg wrote. "It has been the honor of a lifetime to protect the American people and uphold the Constitution of the United States."
