Philly DA Larry Krasner Tried to Undo a Murder Conviction. Now a Federal Grand Jury Is Asking Questions.

Larry Krasner, the progressive district attorney of Philadelphia, is now the one under investigation. The Justice Department has sent federal grand jury subpoenas to his office, two sources told Fox News, which first reported the news Tuesday. The subpoenas are tied to possible obstruction of justice in cases before federal judges.

They come a month after a federal judge said Krasner and one of his top deputies may have broken the law while trying to help a convicted killer get out of prison. The subpoenas relate to possible obstruction of justice, perjury and conspiracy, a source told the New York Post. Krasner's office didn't respond to either outlet. The DOJ declined to comment.

The murder case behind it

In 2007, Kenyatta Smith was shot dead during a botched robbery. Two years later, a jury convicted Dennis Johnson of second-degree murder, and he was sentenced to life, WHYY reported.

Johnson kept appealing. Under Krasner, the DA's office stopped fighting him, and in November 2022 it told a federal court Johnson deserved relief because his trial lawyer had failed him. The filing was overseen by Matthew Stiegler, who then ran the office's Conviction Integrity Unit, the team that reviews old convictions.

U.S. District Judge Paul Diamond, a George W. Bush appointee, later found the office never did its own homework. No independent investigation, no witness interviews, no call to the original prosecutors. Stiegler, according to the judge's findings, told the junior lawyer writing the brief: "if it's good enough for the Innocence Project, it's good enough for me," per WHYY.

This June, four senior prosecutors in Krasner's own office went back to the trial record and found what they called "material misstatements." The 2022 filing said a key witness hadn't visually identified Johnson. At trial, that witness repeatedly testified he saw Johnson's face and knew him from the neighborhood. The supervisors moved to withdraw the filing.

"They're all evil"

What happened next is what landed Krasner in front of a grand jury. Krasner and Stiegler allegedly tried to pin the errors on the junior lawyer, Jaclyn Mason, who has since resigned, the Post reported. When line prosecutors suggested handing the whole mess to the Pennsylvania attorney general's office, one testified that Krasner said: "we can't send it to OAG because essentially they're all evil," and "we have to have somebody in the room, in the courtroom to protect the office."

The judge also found that Krasner warned of "consequences" if staff told the court about an internal conflict, Fox News reported. Several attorneys resigned, saying they felt threatened or blamed, according to KYW Newsradio.

Picture a hospital chief who botches a case, then tells his staff not to call the state medical board because the board is "evil" and the hospital needs its own man in the room. Most people would want the board called immediately.

On Sept. 15, Diamond issued a 40-page memo calling the evidence "tantamount to a prima facie showing" of "false statements, false declarations under oath, perjury, obstruction of justice and conspiracy," WHYY reported. "I have thus reluctantly concluded that Philadelphia's highest law enforcement official and one of his top assistants may have violated the law," he wrote. He removed both men from the case and referred them to federal prosecutors, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported.

Krasner fights the judge

Krasner said he "respectfully and vigorously" disagreed and would appeal. Then he went after the judge, filing motions and a declaration attacking how Diamond "interpreted testimony" from current and former prosecutors, KYW reported.

It backfired. On Oct. 15, Diamond refused to step aside and referred Krasner a second time. He wrote that the fact "that the District Attorney chose not to testify but sought to 'make his case' with an unsworn declaration — the credibility of which I am unable to assess — makes that investigation even more necessary." He said the filing seemed "intended to persuade the media, not the Court," and added: "there are few attorney transgressions more serious than lying to the Court."

Five days later, the subpoenas arrived. Fox News' post breaking the story drew more than 2,500 likes and 120,000 views by Tuesday morning:

Not his first brush

Krasner first won office in 2017 with the help of $1.7 million in spending from George Soros, The Western Journal noted, and has since won two more terms. President Trump has called him the "worst district attorney," per WHYY.

In 2022, the Pennsylvania House impeached him 107 to 85 over his progressive policies amid rising crime, AP reported. One of the seven articles accused him of violating the rule that requires lawyers to be candid with the court in a federal case. He never faced a Senate trial. The state Supreme Court ruled in 2024 that the articles died when the legislative session ended.

A legislature's clock ran out on him once. This time, the question isn't in state lawmakers' hands.

The second look

No charges have been filed yet, and the grand jury will decide what comes next. The irony is hard to miss.

Krasner built his career on the idea that the system should take a hard second look at the people it convicts. Now federal prosecutors are taking that second look at him.