Federal prosecutor accused of mishandling evidence in Trump inauguration protest cases

Source: CNN

Federal prosecutor accused of mishandling evidence in Trump inauguration protest cases

By Katelyn Polantz and Tierney Sneed, CNN
3 minute read
Published 1:22 PM EDT, Tue July 16, 2024

(CNN) — A former federal prosecutor in Washington, DC, is facing attorney discipline proceedings after allegedly obscuring evidence in cases against people who protested Donald Trump’s 2017 inauguration.

That evidence included video originally from the right-wing group Project Veritas, which the Justice Department prosecutor, Jennifer Kerkhoff Muyskens, formerly of the DC US Attorney’s Office, allegedly tried to obscure so the origin of the videos would be kept secret, according to a lengthy new complaint from the attorney discipline office in Washington, DC.

Muyskens was the lead prosecutor in more than 200 cases related to riots and property destruction around the 2017 inauguration, where there were several unpermitted protests against Trump that led to street clashes in the capital city. After one of the first few trials ended in acquittals, essentially all of the cases were eventually dropped by the Justice Department by mid-2018.

Project Veritas had covertly recorded meetings of a group that organized these anti-Trump protests, and the prosecutor had used versions of those videos that edited out key information, including that Project Veritas was behind the videos, the complaint says.

Muyskens also faces an accusation that she lied to the court and misled the grand jury, the complaint states.

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Read more: https://edition.cnn.com/2024/07/16/politics/doj-prosecutor-accused-of-mishandling-evidence-in-trump-inauguration-protest-cases/index.html