The New Republic: “This week, more than 100 former federal prosecutors in Illinois sounded the alarm about the current leaders of the office where they all once served. “Regrettably,” their statement reads, “there is little doubt that actions taken by leadership in the last year have tarnished the reputation of the United States Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Illinois.” They list some serious concerns, including the departure of an “extraordinary” number of experienced prosecutors and the “extraordinary collapse rate” of prosecutions. “When judges increasingly call into question the motivation or candor of prosecutors and agents,” they write, “that is a sure sign that a standard has been compromised.” What they have witnessed merits “serious public scrutiny” because the lawyers who work there “affect not only the quality of justice, but the lives of more than nine million residents” in the district. “We write because an educated public is the only hope against overzealous prosecutions,” they conclude. The letter is a remarkable statement of what prosecutors fear: that the public may lose trust in the justice system, or that their own career has lost its credibility. But it’s significant less for the set of concerns expressed than the fact that they were expressed at all. Things must be especially bad, in other words, for federal prosecutors to call for the serious scrutiny of the public. They are that bad and worse. Federal prosecutors hold a lot of power, which is one reason why the Trump administration has leaned so heavily on them to defend its dirty work. While technically U.S. attorneys work for the Department of Justice and not for the president, such distinctions feel quite hollow when the acting attorney general pledges his loyalty and affection to Donald Trump so openly—“Thank you very much, I love you, sir,” Todd Blanche said at a DOJ press briefing in April. No wonder Blanche was officially nominated this week to stay in the job. Before all this, he was best known as the president’s personal attorney. No wonder it seems like DOJ lawyers serve in that role too. Mercifully, some of them are not very good at hiding it…”