Call to Action: Protect Our Democracy from Abuse of Power
The Department of Justice recently moved to end its case against former national security adviser Michael Flynn. Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his conversation with Russia’s ambassador that took place during the presidential transition.
More than 2,000 DOJ alumni from across the political spectrum have spoken out against these actions by Attorney General (AG) Barr. This is only the second time these public servants have broken with longstanding tradition and joined as a group to criticize actions by the DOJ. The first was when AG Barr overruled the sentencing recommendation of career prosecutors to seek favorable treatment for President Trump’s close associate, Roger Stone. At that time, four federal prosecutors withdrew from the case and one resigned. MWEG spoke up at that time with this official statement.
In their response, the DOJ alumni wrote: “Make no mistake: The Department’s action is extraordinarily rare, if not unprecedented. If any of us, or anyone reading this statement who is not a friend of the President, were to lie to federal investigators in the course of a properly predicated counterintelligence investigation, and admit we did so under oath, we would be prosecuted for it.” It is important to note that while career servants at the DOJ have traditionally come from both sides of the political spectrum, no corresponding group has coalesced in either case to defend the actions of Attorney General Barr. These incidents demonstrate a pattern of AG Barr’s willingness to politicize an independent federal agency by using it to reward a political ally of President Trump.
To Do:
As citizens, we must now add our voices to those of the DOJ alumni. Contact your elected representatives to express your concern over this pattern of disregard for the rule of law. Ask them to do their duty to protect our democracy from this clear abuse of power.
We have made it very easy for you to participate in this call to action. You can submit a letter to all of your elected representatives at once via our website. You have the option to either write your own letter or answer three short prompts to have a personalized letter created for you. It is a great chance for you to try out MWEG’s new letter-writing tool.
Background:
This abuse of power violates Principle 1(a) of MWEG’s Principles of Ethical Government:
(1) Every government official and institution has a duty to respect the rule of law, including accepted processes for how the law is to be established, executed, and interpreted
(a) People in positions of power should not lightly violate or discard long-standing political norms, especially norms that serve to limit the abuse of power.
Additional Developments and Information:
Judge Sullivan, the federal judge overseeing Flynn’s criminal case, “opened the door late Tuesday for legal experts and other outside parties to oppose the Justice Department’s motion to drop the case, suggesting he has at least some skepticism about the government’s argument that Mr. Flynn should never have been charged.”
Wednesday evening, Judge Sullivan appointed a retired judge to examine whether Flynn committed perjury. This is the latest in a series of highly unusual actions surrounding this case, a move that one legal analyst says is essentially “bringing in an outsider to represent the point of view of the original prosecutors in the case, who believed Mr. Flynn had committed a crime before Mr. Barr intervened and essentially replaced them with a prosecutor willing to say he had not.”
Here is a complete list of the DOJ alumni who signed on to the letter referenced above. They have served in the DOJ under both Republican and Democrat presidents.
In addition to the unprecedented actions outlined above, individuals and groups from all along the political spectrum are speaking up about this issue, including:
