Law enforcement officials have restructured the division of federal prosecutors that oversaw the case against President Trump’s longtime friend Roger J. Stone Jr., according to people briefed on the matter, the latest upheaval in an office at the center of the recent political turmoil at the Justice Department.
The reorganization of most of the criminal division of the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington was implemented last week, capping a tumultuous 15-week stint by Timothy Shea, a longtime adviser to Attorney General William P. Barr, as the interim U.S. attorney in Washington. Mr. Shea’s tenure abruptly ended this week when Mr. Barr named him the acting head of the Drug Enforcement Administration.
The White House said Monday that Mr. Trump intended to nominate Justin E. Herdman, the U.S. attorney in Cleveland, to replace Mr. Shea.
Law enforcement officials had discussed an overhaul of the unit for years, but it was not clear why Mr. Shea implemented it when he seemed on the verge of leaving, according to half a dozen people briefed on the changes who would not be named discussing it for fear of retribution. Some lawyers in the office were said to express concern because he was moving prosecutors out of the public corruption unit, which is part of the criminal division. Some feared that it was in response to the turmoil over Mr. Stone’s case, in which Mr. Barr intervened to ask for lighter sentence than prosecutors had recommended, and that members of the unit were being unfairly scrutinized for potential leaks.
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Mr. Shea finalized a plan this spring to overhaul every part of the criminal division except for the national security section, which was responsible for the prosecution of Mr. Trump’s former national security adviser Michael T. Flynn, which Mr. Barr sought to withdraw after a sustained campaign by Mr. Trump and his supporters. Mr. Barr’s action was highly unusual and it prompted the federal judge overseeing the case to ask a former judge to oppose it.
Mr. Shea made his most extensive changes at the fraud and public corruption unit, which handled politically sensitive matters like the Stone case. It also oversees the ongoing investigation into stock trades that Senator Richard M. Burr, Republican of North Carolina, made as the pandemic was unfolding in the United States. F.B.I. agents seized Mr. Burr’s cellphone last week in a major escalation of the inquiry.
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Mr. Shea’s prospects of becoming U.S. attorney permanently were thrown into jeopardy in his first week on the job, when the president complained about the sentencing recommendation for Mr. Stone made by career prosecutors in the office. Mr. Stone was convicted of seven felonies in an effort to impede a congressional inquiry that threatened Mr. Trump.
Mr. Barr intervened to ask a federal judge for a lighter sentence than prosecutors had requested. He denied that he did so at the president’s urging and instead blamed the prosecutors’ original recommendation on a miscommunication with Mr. Shea.
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Mr. Shea had grown increasingly isolated from the prosecutors he was leading after many employees started to work remotely, according to current and former department employees. Some workers told associates that he had damaged the office by doing what they saw as Mr. Barr’s bidding. Other said he had been put in an impossible position of trying to ingratiate himself with lawyers who did not trust the attorney general. Few assumed he would stay.
Nonetheless, Mr. Shea himself was taken aback when his departure appeared in media reports on Monday before the White House announced that Mr. Herdman would replace him, as were others in the office, according to two people familiar with the matter.
No good deed goes unpunished…