Last month the second effort to recall progressive DA George Gascon failed. Supporters needed 566,000 valid signatures to get on the ballot but came up short with only 520,000 signatures. That was a shame because polling suggested that if it had made it on the ballot the recall would have succeeded.

In any case, several of the Deputy District Attorneys who supported the recall now claim they have been retaliated against by DA Gascon. Their salaries have not been cut but their responsibilities have been.

“The DA is reassigning me to retaliate against me for calling attention to the fact that he’s incompetent and not following the law in the state of California,” [DDA John] McKinney said.

“I am only a month and half away from having prosecuted one of the highest profile cases in our office in recent memory, and I’m being reassigned to a job of literally no consequence,” he said in reference to the Hussle murder case.

After 24 years in the district attorney’s office, McKinney was told by a supervisor on Thursday that he will be transferred to a small area office overseeing misdemeanor prosecutions.

McKinney was scheduled to prosecute the murder of Brianna Kupfer next but now that case is being reassigned.

[Jason] Lustig, who has been with the office 33 years, spearheaded the failed recall effort against Gascón, which McKinney and Lewin supported. The veteran prosecutor’s new post will be as a trial deputy in the Major Narcotics Division in downtown Los Angeles.

“It’s clear retaliation. I’ve been hurt professionally and economically, and it’s extremely stressful,” Lustig told Fox News Digital. “It’s taking me back to the position I held in 1994, my fifth year in the DA’s office.”

Although Lustig’s pay will not change, the transfer essentially stymies any shot at a future promotion and increases his commute from seven to 30 miles, he said. Both McKinney and Lustig described their new positions as blatant demotions.

Gascon’s office claimed the reassignments were not demotions. And because pay wasn’t cut that might be technically true but obviously if you go from working on the most high profile murders in the city to prosecuting misdemeanors, it’s a demotion.

Unfortunately, LA County is stuck with Gascon for now. All we can do is continue to point out that he is one of the worst DAs in the country, though there is a lot of competition these days. The Republican candidate running for California Attorney General is using one of Gascon’s previous failures as a campaign ad.

Our campaign released our first statewide digital ad for the general election today.

Rachel's experience is an unfortunate reminder that for Bonta and Gascon, the interests of criminals, not victims, come first. pic.twitter.com/upZ5dBDrpl

— Nathan Hochman (@NathanHochmanAG) September 22, 2022

Incidentally, the driver in that case, who was sentenced to 5 months at a diversionary camp for youth offenders, is now seeking early release.

The California juvenile convicted of mowing down a mother walking her 8-month-old in a stroller in Los Angeles last year will appear in court Thursday morning to ask for early release, Fox News Digital has learned.

The hearing, on the docket for 9 a.m., was scheduled at 3:30 p.m. Wednesday, according to Shea Sanna, a deputy district attorney in Los Angeles who had called for stiffer sentencing for the suspect to begin with.

I haven’t seen the resolution of that yet but this kid ought to be in jail for a lot longer than 5 months.