Ethics
Prosecutor in Trump protest circumstances needs to be suspended for her ‘slender view’ of disclosure duties, panel says
October 8, 2025, 12:23 pm CDT
Protesters and police on Jan. 20, 2017, the day of President Donald Trump’s first inauguration. (Photograph by Jahi Chikwendiu/The Washington Put up through Getty Pictures)
The lead prosecutor dealing with circumstances in opposition to protesters in the course of the January 2017 inauguration of President Donald Trump needs to be suspended for 3 months for “merely untenable” discovery conduct, in response to a listening to committee of the District of Columbia Court docket of Appeals Board on Skilled Accountability.
Former Assistant U.S. Legal professional Jennifer Kerkhoff Muyskens needs to be suspended from observe for failing to reveal exculpatory undercover movies of protest planning recorded by the conservative activist group Mission Veritas, the committee concluded in an Oct. 6 report and suggestion.
Concluding that Muyskens “routinely took a slender view of her discovery obligations,” the listening to committee really useful a “first-of-its-kind” unstayed suspension for a prosecutor within the District of Columbia.
In the course of the inauguration protests, some contributors smashed automobile and retailer home windows, vandalized a bakery and fuel station, and dumped trash cans and newspaper stands into the road.
The federal government’s idea was that greater than 200 defendants had joined a conspiracy to riot, even when many contributors have been peaceable. The primary six defendants tried countered that they joined a peaceable protest and didn’t plan to riot.
As proof of planning for violent acts, Muyskens relied on an edited undercover video recorded at a Jan. 8 assembly that was disclosed to the protection. She didn’t, nonetheless, disclose different “Motion Camp” movies from Jan. 14 and 15 that confirmed instruction on de-escalation strategies and dialogue of peacekeeping.
The listening to committee concluded that the de-escalation instruction within the undisclosed movies was exculpatory proof that ought to have been offered to protection. The instruction contrasted with the disclosed video wherein contributors mentioned property destruction, the listening to committee mentioned.
Muyskens additionally ought to have disclosed that the movies have been recorded by Mission Veritas, in response to a majority of the listening to committee. However the panel discovered that her enhancing on the disclosed tape didn’t violate ethics guidelines.
In addition to taking a slender view of her discovery duties, Muyskens “repeatedly interpreted the court docket’s discovery admonitions within the narrowest method attainable, typically straining credulity in doing so,” the listening to committee mentioned. “Extra to the purpose, she continued in her inaccurate interpretation of her discovery obligations within the face of specific court docket orders on the contrary and, when her conduct was lastly found, continued to dishonestly obscure the character and extent of what she had achieved.”
The committee cited mitigating components, together with that Muyskens was the only lead prosecutor liable for greater than 200 issues regarding the riot. “She was burdened considerably by an overbroad charging resolution that was mandated by workplace management, and he or she was later additional burdened by understaffing for such a big matter,” the committee mentioned.
However the mitigating components didn’t outweigh the seriousness of Muyskens’ conduct, the committee concluded.
Muyskens had argued {that a} choose’s order to restrict the amount of cellphone disclosure to the protection guided her selections on video proof. She additionally claimed that an order to reveal everything of edited movies utilized solely to 1 video, and de-escalation strategies proven within the movies weren’t exculpatory.
In a Might temporary, Muyskens had argued the proof “didn’t even come near the incendiary hyperbole” of the Workplace of Disciplinary Counsel, Reuters reviews in its story on the suspension suggestion. “The proof confirmed there was no conspiracy to suppress proof. There have been no lies. There was no intentional misconduct,” the submitting mentioned.
The temporary added that Muyskens resigned from her job within the U.S. Legal professional’s workplace in Utah and “give up the authorized occupation.”
Muyskens is represented by Adam Hoffinger of Greenberg Traurig, who didn’t instantly reply to an ABA Journal voicemail and e-mail searching for remark.
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