A former Miami federal prosecutor and other out-of-towners in leadership roles at the U.S. attorney's office in the District of Columbia deepened a sense of disarray and upheaval.

It started in May when Tim Shea was nearing the end of his 120-day appointment as the acting U.S. attorney in Washington, the largest in the country.

The former aide to U.S. Attorney General William Barr had some baggage after the uproar over the Justice Department leadership's intervention for two Trump allies — political adviser Roger Stone and former national security adviser Michael Flynn.

Shea needed a court appointment to extend his tenure, but it became clear he lacked crucial support. In a phone call, U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell informed Shea that she could not support his permanent appointment, according to three people familiar with the conversation.

On May 18, Barr named Shea the acting head of the Drug Enforcement Administration, and the Justice Department announced the president's intent to nominate Justin Herdman, the U.S. attorney in northern Ohio, to serve as the top federal prosecutor in Washington. But no nomination has come through.

Another Barr adviser, ex-Miami prosecutor Michael Sherwin, stepped in to lead the Washington prosecutor's office in the meantime. Sherwin, a former Navy intelligence officer, headed the nation's largest health care fraud task force in Miami after tackling drug, securities, public corruption and foreign bribery cases.

In an office traditionally led by a lawyer with Washington ties, the reshuffling replaced the Boston-rooted Shea with Sherwin and put the U.S. attorney in Cleveland in line to take over. Combined with the coronavirus outbreak, the serial  leadership changes drained morale.

"Having worked in that office for the better part of my career, I can only imagine it is unsettling for most [career prosecutors], and that is because in any U.S. attorney's office, particularly in D.C.'s office, which serves as the local and federal prosecutor, you need stability. That just hasn't occurred in that office over the past several months," said Channing Phillips, who served from 2015 to 2017 as the acting U.S. attorney in Washington.

A Justice Department spokeswoman declined to comment.

Sherwin told The National Law Journal that since taking over the Washington office in May, he has stressed to career prosecutors he views his role as supporting them and having their backs "100%."

"I think we're going through unprecedented times. Few U.S. attorneys who've ever held this office have had to confront a public health crisis coupled with social unrest and a litany of politically charged cases," Sherwin said. "It's a combination of multiple factors that make working at the U.S. attorney's office at this time very challenging. That being said, I want the office to know and the community to know that I am, one, a career prosecutor."

Sherwin continued: "I understand the challenges of being an AUSA and, despite significant turnover from Jessie Liu to Tim Shea to myself, the office should know that I have their back 100%. And under my leadership, this office will be fully transparent and not only meet but exceed our legal and ethical obligations on behalf of this community and the United States."

Turnover in Turmoil

The turnover at the top began in January when Jessie Liu stepped down while awaiting confirmation to serve as a Treasury Department undersecretary overseeing sanctions enforcement. She was pressed in late 2019 to leave the prosecutor's office as part of what Barr's team billed as a push to have steady leadership in 2020, according to officials familiar with Liu's departure. Liu took a Treasury post only to resign after the Trump administration pulled her nomination as undersecretary.

The subsequent leadership handoffs played out as prosecutors dealt with the dramatic aftermath of the Justice Department abandoning its case against Flynn, who twice pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI, along with a lighter sentencing recommendation for Stone without the support of his prosecutors.

Trump's commutation of Stone's 40-month prison term inflamed the perception that Barr acted to help a friend of the president. Before Trump's clemency announcement, Barr reiterated his view that Stone's prosecution as "righteous" and saw the 40-month sentence as fair, saying the judge  "effectively" agreed with him that the original prison recommendation by career prosecutors was overly harsh.

In the Flynn case, U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan refused to immediately grant DOJ's motion to dismiss and instead appointed a former federal judge to review the unusual move. Flynn contested Sullivan's review, and DOJ backed his challenge in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.

A divided three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit ordered Sullivan to dismiss the case, but an en banc request is pending.

Thousands of former prosecutors questioned Justice's moves to benefit Stone and Flynn. One prosecutor on the Stone case, Jonathan Kravis, quit over Barr's decision to withdraw the sentencing memo.

"In both cases, the department undercut the work of career employees to protect an ally of the president, an abdication of the commitment to equal justice under the law," Kravis, now a partner at Munger, Tolles & Olson, said in an op-ed in May. "Prosecutors must make decisions based on facts and law, not on the defendant's political connections."

Another prosecutor on the Stone case, Aaron Zelinsky, told a U.S. House panel in June that the trial team came under "heavy pressure from the highest levels of the Department of Justice" to give Trump's friend a "break." The career federal prosecutor in Maryland withdrew as a special assistant U.S. attorney detailed to the Washington office following Barr's intervention.

Recruiting From Miami

Shea joined Barr's front office at Main Justice in April 2019 from Morgan, Lewis & Bockius ad became acting U.S. attorney in late January. He announced the arrival of Sherwin, a Miami prosecutor for 12 years, in March.

While summarizing Sherwin's work Shea didn't mention he Impressed Justice Department leaders with his role investigating the al-Qaida-linked shooting at the Pensacola Naval Air Station last year and his role in the prosecution of a Chinese businesswoman convicted of trespassing at Mar-a-Lago, President Donald Trump's Palm Beach club and personal retreat.

On arrival, Sherwin focused on investigations coronavirus-related crime, including an insider-trading probe of U.S. Sen. Richard Burr, R-North Carolina, over stock sales just before the pandemic sent markets plummeting. Burr, represented by a team from Latham & Watkins, has denied any wrongdoing.

In April, Sherwin recruited former Miami colleague Maria Medetis to Washington. Her move was met with puzzlement and some shock after email from Miami U.S. Attorney Ariana Fajardo Orshanto her office.

Fajardo said Sherwin recruited Medetis to become chief of the Washington office's criminal division. That raised eyebrows because longtime prosecutor John Crabb was leading the criminal division as acting chief at the time and Medetis was joining as deputy chief.

A representative for Fajardo declined to comment on her internal announcement.

In the initial confusion, career prosecutors viewed the announcement as a slight against Crabb. For them, the arrival of another Miami prosecutor to a division reeling from the controversy about Stone's sentencing contributed to a growing sense of unease, according to people familiar with the episode.

Sherwin approached at least two other lawyers in the Miami office to gauge their interest in coming to Washington, according to a person familiar with his recruitment efforts. He also contacted multiple trial attorneys in the fraud section at main Justice's criminal division.

Meanwhile, new leaders of the U.S. attorney's criminal division in Washington broke up the section that prosecuted Stone, dividing the fraud and public corruption unit in two.

The reorganization created a standalone fraud unit, with a focus on economic crimes, including coronavirus-related fraud. The other unit focuses on public corruption and civil rights cases, mirroring the criminal division of the U.S. attorney's office in Miami.

Sherwin's appointment as acting U.S. attorney in Washington took effect May 19, making him the third leader of the office in six months. In an officewide conference call shortly afterward, Sherwin underscored his background as a career prosecutor and announced Crabb, the acting chief of the criminal division, had been promoted to the permanent position. Sherwin kept other career prosecutors atop the newly reshuffled sections.