Tim Heaphy

Virginia’s new Republican attorney general has fired the University of Virginia’s counsel, who was on leave from the job to work as the top investigator for the U.S. House panel investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the Capitol. Tim Heaphy, who had worked at the state’s flagship university for about three years, was among roughly 30 staffers who were let go by Attorney General Jason S. Miyares shortly before he took office a little over a week ago. Heaphy was hired by the university in 2018. The hiring came after he conducted an independent investigation of the infamous “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville in 2017 that left one protester dead and dozens others injured. He was previously appointed as U.S. attorney for the Western District of Virginia by President Barack Obama.