An Arlington native and former federal prosecutor who investigated President Donald Trump is running for Congress.
J.P. Cooney — who served as a top deputy for special counsel Jack Smith’s office in two criminal prosecutions against Trump, before the president fired him in January 2025 — announced his candidacy today (Wednesday).
The Arlington resident and longtime community volunteer is running as a Democrat in Virginia’s 7th Congressional District, which may be redrawn to include a northern portion of Arlington, if a Democrat-led proposal from the General Assembly withstands a lawsuit and a statewide referendum.
“I’m running for Congress because never before in the history of our country has a president of the United States posed a graver threat to our Democracy, our rule of law, and the economic security of American families,” Cooney said in a press release. “And never before have we had a complicit Congress rubber-stamp a lawless president like Donald Trump.”
Rep. Eugene Vindman (D) currently represents the 7th District, but an overhaul of the congressional map could change that. The new “lobster-shaped” map for this district — which would extend as far west as the West Virginia border and south to the outskirts of Richmond — could end up without an incumbent.
The proposed map changes, which would heavily favor Democrats, are billed as countering gerrymandering efforts in other states’ Republican-led legislatures.
Cooney served as a prosecutor for 18 years. He investigated groups such as the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers, along with longtime Trump advisors Steve Bannon and Peter Navarro, as chief of the Fraud and Public Corruption Section of the D.C. U.S. Attorney’s Office.
After being fired in a purge of prosecutors who handled Jan. 6 cases, Cooney launched a private law firm where he continues to focus on public corruption cases.
In an interview with the New York Times prior to his campaign announcement, Cooney said his candidacy was driven in part by federal agents’ killing of Alex Pretti in Minneapolis last month, and a frustration with lawmakers’ failure to place more substantial checks on the president.
“Never has there been a Congress that has been such a weak and ineffective check on a president’s abuses of power,” Cooney said. “I lie awake every night worrying that Donald Trump does not have the best interests of our country in mind, and that’s a seismic shift in American leadership and politics.”
Cooney grew up in Arlington and graduated Yorktown High School before earning degrees at the University of Notre Dame and the UVA Law School. He also serves as a youth baseball coach and has three children, who also attend Yorktown.
