MIAMI — Federal prosecutor Will Rosenzweig took a short break from his health care fraud and money-laundering cases at the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Miami this week to observe the Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashanah, with his family.

But he noticed something was amiss when his office-issued mobile phone wasn’t working on Tuesday. He called the office to find out what was wrong.

Rosenzweig soon learned his phone was shut off because he had been fired by U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi. He did not see her terse email sent on Tuesday dismissing him during the Jewish holiday — making the 39-year-old lawyer the third federal prosecutor in the Southern District of Florida to be summarily fired by the Bondi-led Justice Department since Donald Trump started his second term as president in January.

But Rosenzweig — considered to be among the rising prosecutors in the office — wasn’t fired because he had been associated with the criminal investigations of Trump by the Justice Department’s special counsel during the prior Biden administration. That was why two other respected federal prosecutors in the Miami office were abruptly terminated this year.

Rather, Rosenzweig was fired, according to multiple sources, because of the negative things he said about Trump on a social media blog before he became a federal prosecutor in Miami. When he was working for the prominent law firm Kobre & Kim in Washington during Trump’s first term, Rosenzweig posted criticisms of the president starting in 2017 — posts that were recently brought to the attention of the Justice Department.

On Tuesday, conservative political commentator Natalie Winters posted an “EXCLUSIVE” item on the social media platform X about Rosenzweig’s “anti-Trump” blogging in the past.

Then on Wednesday, right-wing political activist Laura Loomer posted on X: “SCOOP: DOJ sources tell me that Assistant US Attorney Will Rosenzweig was FIRED yesterday (Tuesday) after he was exposed for running an anti-Trump blog.”

With his dismissal, Rosenzweig has become the latest of dozens of federal prosecutors fired by Trump’s Justice Department in Washington, New York, Miami and other cities who were believed to be at odds with the president or his political agenda.

Earlier this month, Erik Siebert, the U.S. Attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia, resigned from his position amid pressure from Trump administration officials to bring criminal charges against two of the president’s adversaries: New York Attorney General Letitia James and former FBI Director James Comey. Siebert reportedly cited a lack of evidence to make the cases.

“He didn’t quit, I fired him!” Trump wrote on his social media platform. Trump replaced him with Lindsey Halligan, a White House aide who has never worked as a prosecutor.

Dangers of ‘a government that silences its people’: ex-Miami U.S. attorney

Marcos Jimenez, a former U.S. Attorney in Miami who was appointed by President George W. Bush, said Rosenzweig’s termination coupled with a slew of other Trump-directed firings “is clearly a sign that the Justice Department has become completely politicized.”

“They are going after people who are insufficiently loyal to the president,” said Jimenez, adding that as a Cuban refugee, he fully understands the terrible consequences of “a government that silences its people.”

“It shows that Trump and Bondi care more about loyalty to the president than they do about the Justice Department,” he said. “It’s not just this prosecutor, but career prosecutors and FBI agents who have been fired, forced to resign or demoted around the country.”

Rosenzweig, who obtained his bachelor’s and law degrees from Cornell University, joined the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Miami in September 2020 — toward the end of Trump’s first term before he lost the presidential election to Joe Biden.

Was working on Medicare fraud case

Rosenzweig worked on dozens of complex cases as a prosecutor in the economic crimes section, which focuses on healthcare fraud, money laundering and other financial schemes. Of late, Rosenzweig was deeply involved in a Medicare fraud case that was scheduled for trial in early October in Miami federal court, so his dismissal by Bondi will likely cause disruption and delay.

His termination shocked several colleagues, who took note of the terrible timing and pettiness of his firing, calling it another “frogmarch.” They also said his loss would be a significant blow to an office that has witnessed a “brain drain” of veteran talent over the past year.

On Thursday, Rosenzweig could not be reached for comment. The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Miami and the Department of Justice did not respond to Miami Herald inquiries about his firing, including questions about the reason for his termination.

The office, with more than 200 lawyers prosecuting federal cases from Key West to Fort Pierce, is known as one of the busiest in the country — but it has been under siege.

Trump’s nominee to head the office, former Miami-Dade County Judge Jason Reding Quinones, took over as the new U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida in August. Reding Quinones, a member of the conservative Federalist Society and a Trump loyalist, was sworn in by Bondi in Washington, instead of the Southern District of Florida’s chief federal judge, which is normally tradition.

Bondi fires another top Miami prosecutor

In July, Bondi terminated another federal prosecutor in Miami, Brooke C. Watson, a seasoned lawyer who in 2023 was honored by then-Attorney General Merrick Garland with a prestigious award recognizing her “exceptional dedication” to prosecuting a ring that used fake identities to commit about $50 million in COVID-19 loan fraud.

Last year, Watson received another Justice Department award for “exceptional service” disrupting a ransomware group that threatened to steal hundreds of millions of dollars from computer networks worldwide.

As she did in Rosenzweig’s case, Bondi fired Watson in a terse email — providing no reason, according to multiple sources familiar with her termination.

Watson, 46, who as deputy criminal chief was serving in one of the office’s senior positions, became another casualty in President Donald Trump’s mission to purge anyone found to have worked in some way for special counsel Jack Smith.

Smith led the prosecution of Trump for his alleged role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by Trump supporters trying to stop Congress’ certification of the 2020 presidential election. Trump lost to former President Joe Biden in the election.

Watson was among about a dozen Justice Department employees, including a few federal prosecutors, who were terminated by Bondi in July — the latest wave of firings in the agency since Trump started his second term as president.

According to sources, Watson temporarily worked on the special counsel’s team, which recruited her to evaluate financial information related to the Jan. 6 case. The sources said Watson found no incriminating information that was used to prosecute Trump or the various right-wing, white-supremacist groups and individuals who rallied to hear the president speak that day on the Ellipse in Washington.

That was the extent of her involvement in the special counsel’s investigation, which led to more than 1,500 people being charged and most convicted of trespassing, vandalism, assault or seditious conspiracy. Upon taking office, Trump pardoned almost all of them and commuted the sentences of more than a dozen others associated with the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers.

Watson graduated from Brown University and Northeastern University School of Law. Seven years later, she joined the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Miami and worked there for more than a decade.

Watson was the second federal prosecutor in the Miami office to be fired for playing a role in the special counsel’s Jan. 6 investigation or his classified documents probe of Trump, a case that was filed in South Florida.

Other firings

In late January, Miami federal prosecutor Michael Thakur, 46, a Harvard Law School graduate who worked on the documents case accusing Trump of withholding top secret materials at his Palm Beach estate, was fired along with dozens of others in the Justice Department who were members of the special counsel’s team.

In addition to Thakur, Anne McNamara, a former federal prosecutor in the Miami office before joining Smith’s team in Washington, was also terminated.

The Justice Department’s rolling purges of lawyers and employees who participated in the two federal criminal cases against Trump — which Smith dismissed after Trump won the 2024 presidential election — are expected to continue in Washington and other regions of the country.

Since Trump started his second term, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Miami has lost not only Thakur, Watson and now Rosenzweig to firings but also many other veteran prosecutors to retirement or career opportunities. Among them: Joan Silverstein, Bob Senior, Dan Bernstein, Kiran Bhat, Tom Watts-Fitzgerald, Jonathan Stratton, Tony Gonzalez, Ignacio Vazquez, Lisa Rubio, Dexter Lee, Jeff Kaplan, Paul Schwartz, Harry Wallace and Tony Lacosta.

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