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applegrove

(118,008 posts)
Tue Feb 18, 2020, 06:10 AM Feb 2020

Heather Cox Richardson - February 17, 2020 - Letters From An American

https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com

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This was too much for former Department of Justice employees. On February 16, news broke that a bipartisan group of more than 2,000 of them had signed a letter saying that “each of us strongly condemns President Trump’s and Attorney General Barr’s interference in the fair administration of justice.” “[P]olitical interference in the conduct of a criminal prosecution is anathema to the Department’s core mission and to its sacred obligation to ensure equal justice under the law,” they wrote. “And yet, President Trump and Attorney General Barr have openly and repeatedly flouted this fundamental principle.”

And then they said it: “Governments that use the enormous power of law enforcement to punish their enemies and reward their allies are not constitutional republics; they are autocracies.”

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Also today, the Federal Judges’ Association called an emergency meeting to respond to the intervention of Attorney General Barr into the sentencing of Roger Stone. The Federal Judges Association is a bipartisan group of more than 1000 federal judges, whose mission is “to protect the independence of the judiciary and to explain its significance to a free society.”

As a voluntary organization, the Federal Judges’ Association has no legal authority to remove Barr, but it has important moral authority. Harvard Professor Laurence Tribe tweeted: “This is rolling thunder. One stuffed goose named Barr is cooked. 2000 DOJ alumni he can ignore. 1000 federal judges? That’s an altogether different kettle of fish.” He elaborated: “Moral suasion shouldn’t be discounted — at least not yet. It won’t move Trump or Barr directly but could build pressure for more resignations down the line and thereby indirectly affect the electorate in November…. And in any event discrediting those who deserve to be discredited is good in itself.”

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