Government

Career Prosecutor Torches Bill Barr In Epic Resignation Editorial

Ouch, that's gonna leave a mark.

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(Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

“After 36 years, I’m fleeing what was the U.S. Department of Justice — where I proudly served 19 different attorneys general and six different presidents,” former Assistant U.S. Attorney Phillip Halpern wrote yesterday in the San Diego Union-Tribune.

In a searing editorial, Halpern says he can no longer work in a DOJ helmed by Attorney General Bill Barr. After decades as a prosecutor in the Southern District of California, he’s heading for the exit. Loudly!

Halpern calls out Barr for his blatantly partisan intervention to help Donald Trump’s friends and punish his enemies, beginning with the deliberate mischaracterization of the Mueller report, and rising to a feverish crescendo of impropriety in 2020.

Unfortunately, over the last year, Barr’s resentment toward rule-of-law prosecutors became increasingly difficult to ignore, as did his slavish obedience to Donald Trump’s will in his selective meddling with the criminal justice system in the Paul Manafort, Michael Flynn and Roger Stone cases. In each of these cases, Barr overruled career prosecutors in order to assist the president’s associates and/or friends, who potentially harbor incriminating information. This career bureaucrat seems determined to turn our democracy into an autocracy.

There is no other honest explanation for Barr’s parroting of the president’s wild and unsupported conspiracy theories regarding mail-in ballots (which have been contradicted by the president’s handpicked FBI director) and his support for the president’s sacking of the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, whose office used the thinnest of veils to postpone charging the president in a criminal investigation along with Michael Cohen (who pled guilty and directly implicated the president).

Halpern says he would have left long ago, if not for fear that in his absence Barr would move to derail the prosecution of former Congressman Duncan Hunter, who pled guilty to campaign finance violations, but spent a year screaming bloody murder that he was being persecuted for supporting Donald Trump. (Because he and his wife accidentally used the campaign credit card to pay for tuition, vacations, dental work, and trips to Burger King.)

Confirming his scorn for honest apolitical prosecutors, Barr refers to some as “headhunters” who pursue “ill-conceived charges against prominent political figures.” It does not appear to be a coincidence that all of these prominent political figures happen to be friends of the president. However, if I’m a headhunter because I charged and convicted disgraced local House members Duncan D. Hunter and Randy “Duke” Cunningham, so be it. It’s a badge that I will wear with honor.

I remained in government service this past year at least partly because I was concerned that the department would interfere with the Hunter prosecution in my absence.

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For those who don’t remember Congressman Cunningham, he pled guilty in 2005 to accepting $2.4 million worth of bribes, including living rent-free on a defense contractor’s yacht named “The Duke-Stir.” And although Cunninham was a Republican, President George W. Bush never publicly upbraided the Justice Department for bringing charges against members of his own party.

Halpern isn’t above a little snark, poking fun at Barr for supervising thousands of prosecutors when he’s “never actually investigated, charged or tried a case,” pointing out that gassing peaceful protestors could never be defended before an actual jury.

More recently, Barr directed federal officers to use tear gas in Lafayette Park to quell what were, at that time, peaceful protesters. Barr’s assertion the square was not cleared due to the president’s desire for a Bible-carrying photo op is laughable. It is certainly a case that Barr would lose before a jury (again, though, this may not be clear to him due to his unfamiliarity with jury trials).

While Halpern commends his colleagues for their commitment to nonpartisanship and impartial justice, he bemoans the fact that many of his experienced colleagues have left, and recruitment of quality replacements has been difficult as the Department’s reputation has become further damaged.

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The piece is a scathing indictment, and the country is much the worse without Halpern and the dedicated prosecutors pushed out by Barr’s incompetent mismanagement of the Justice Department.

Commentary: I won’t work in Attorney General William Barr’s Justice Department any longer [San Diego Union Tribune]

Elizabeth Dye lives in Baltimore where she writes about law and politics.

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