Government

DOJ Alumni Rally Around Rule Of Law, Rod Rosenstein

The law is trying to protect itself from the president.

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Former DOJ are going full “This. Is. Sparta!” on Donald Trump.

Rod Rosenstein might be prepared to become a martyr for the rule of law, but former Justice Department officials won’t let him go to the cross quietly. There’s a petition going around, and I’m bringing it up over the weekend because a lot of former DOJ lawyers are signing on.

We, the undersigned, are proud alumni of the United States Department of Justice. We served this institution out of a commitment to the founding American principles that our democratic republic depends upon the rule of law, that the law must be applied equally, and that no one is above the law. Many of us served with Robert Mueller and Rod Rosenstein. Those of us who served with these men know them to be dedicated public servants committed to these principles. All of us served with thousands of their peers at the Department, who also swear an oath to serve, defend, and protect the United States, the Constitution and the American people. We know that there are thousands of public servants at the Department today who serve these principles and all of us.

We are therefore deeply disturbed by the attacks that have been levied against the good men and women of the Department.

245 former DOJ people have signed on so far. Many are non-political, career officials. Here’s a representative quotes from Joyce Branda, a former Deputy Assistant Attorney General who served under: Trump, Obama, Bush II, Clinton, Bush I, Reagan, Carter.

I served under 7 presidents, both Democrat and Republican, during my 37 year career at the Department of Justice. Despite ideological and policy differences between administrations, all of the men and women I served with took pride in the Department’s independence from political interference. We all took an oath to enforce the Constitution and our laws in a fair and even handed manner. This is the bedrock principle of our constitutional republic: that we are a government of laws, not of men. President Trump’s shameful and baseless attacks on the Department and the Special Counsel threaten to undermine this foundational premise. The law is not a weapon in the President’s political arsenal. A President who fails to understand this and who cannot protect the Department of Justice from political interference is unfit to serve.

“The law is not a weapon in the President’s political arsenal” — says a woman who probably served under Peter Stuyvesant if we had records going back that far.

This really isn’t a Democrat v. Republican thing. This is a law v. state-of-nature thing. Whether Trump can bash Rosenstein over the head with a club is irrelevant. In a society of laws, there are things that you physically can do that you are nonetheless not supposed to do.

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I don’t expect this letter to convince Trump; our National Legal Adviser, Fox & Friends, is unlikely to summarize this letter in their daily briefing to the president. But I’d like to think it could convince even craven partisans to realize the scope of legal opposition against a president using his power to stop an investigation into himself.

If you are former DOJ, take a look. Getting the number to 300 would at least allow me to make Thermopylae jokes when the God King President surrounds Rosenstein.

DOJ Alumni Statement Regarding Rod Rosenstein, Robert Mueller, and the Rule of Law [Medium]

Elie Mystal is the Executive Editor of Above the Law and the Legal Editor for More Perfect. He can be reached @ElieNYC on Twitter, or at elie@abovethelaw.com. He will resist.

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