Screenshot from Washington Post email alert.
I am of two minds about this. When good people, like (some) federal career prosecutors, quit the DOJ on principle, it makes a powerful and important statement. (And headlines in the gawdawful Washington Post, apparently.) I could never ask any one of them to stay against their conscience, and to remain part of a captured, right-wing-politicized, weaponized DOJ, tasked with acting like the president’s personal law firm – one with the power to imprison his targets. That is some seriously fascist $#!+, right there.
At the same time, quitting on principle makes the DOJ even worse, with a stronger concentration of amoral, authoritarian @$$holes remaining. Those who leave know this of course, and I have to wonder how many of them have struggled to stay this long for that very reason, hoping to keep their jobs by keeping their heads down, and attempting to persevere until the chaos demons currently in charge are gone. But everyone with a conscience has their breaking point.
There is no good choice here for prosecutors who actually believe in, and often have devoted their entire careers to, the rule of law. Oh, they will be fine, at least financially: prosecutors are heavily recruited by law firms, and private practice pays way, WAAAAY more than a public prosecutor’s salary. They may even get to take some satisfaction in representing clients targeted by their former colleagues at DOJ.
The whole thing just makes me sad, angry, and wishing I had a passport from another country.
Then again, if I had a different passport I wouldn’t be able to forfeit my vote to my Black neighbor. 😈
If the next president is a Democrat I think a bunch of these guys will get hired back. It will be the only way to restaff in a reasonable period of time. The damage to the DOJ goes far beyond those quitting over Comey, in total they are down thousands of lawyers. The DOJ will be able to hire some from state and local prosecutors but not enough and it would be a bad idea to staff entirely with inexperienced ones straight out of law school.
Some of the ones that did stick around will have to be terminated and some will lose their law license entirely because of what they did for the Trump administration, a few might even need prosecuted. Knowingly providing false information in court is a serious crime but from what I have seen few of the lawyers are responsible for this.
Why would they want to be hired back when they’re making $3-4 million a year in the private sector?
they’re really quitting to avoid the blame for stealing a bottle of kool ka$h whooskey.
LOL. It’s probably not even worth stealing.