He was running for Bucks County DA. Now he’s helping the Pentagon instead after the Capitol insurrection

An Army reservist running for Bucks County district attorney is ending his campaign so he can help the Pentagon respond to potential domestic unrest following last week’s insurrection by a pro-Trump mob at the U.S. Capitol.

Danny Ceisler, 28, had raised about $200,000 for his Democratic primary campaign and attracted support from party leaders like Patrick Murphy, the former congressman and undersecretary of the Army. But after the deadly assault on the Capitol and amid FBI warnings of potential new attacks in all 50 states, Ceisler said he received a call Wednesday from the military asking if he could serve on a Domestic Unrest Crisis Management Team at the Pentagon.

“We are at a critical point in our nation’s history, our institutions are under attack, and I am going to do my duty,” Ceisler, an Army captain who lives in Bristol, wrote Thursday on Facebook, announcing he was suspending his campaign and would abide by Defense Department restrictions on political activity.

Ceisler, the son of Commonwealth Court Judge Ellen Ceisler and Philadelphia public relations executive Larry Ceisler, arrived in Washington on Friday.

“As difficult as it was to leave a campaign that we had spent months building, this was no question,” he told The Inquirer Friday. “When you get called to serve, you go. Service members across the country have been put through the ringer this year responding to domestic crisis after crisis. Every time, they stepped up and got the job done.”

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Ceisler previously served in Afghanistan, and then in the Army reserves. Last year he spent six months at the Pentagon working on teams responding to the coronavirus pandemic and monitoring unrest and National Guard activity amid nationwide protests over the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

Murphy, who served two terms in Congress from 2007 to 2011, said Ceisler “did a phenomenal job” organizing support among veterans in Bucks County for President-elect Joe Biden’s campaign.

“I’m proud of his public service in the military, and was excited about him becoming our next district attorney,” Murphy said. “His future is bright.”

Bucks County District Attorney Matthew Weintraub, 52, is the the last remaining Republican district attorney in Pennsylvania’s suburban collar counties outside Philadelphia, after Democrats were elected in Delaware and Chester Counties last year. Weintraub has served as the county’s top prosecutor since 2016.

Antonetta Stancu, 42, a former prosecutor who once worked alongside Weintraub, launched her campaign as a Democrat last month.

The primary election is scheduled for May 18.