A federal prosecutor wrote a letter expressing his opposition to Attorney General William Barr, who he said “brought shame” to the Department of Justice.
“While I am a federal prosecutor, I am writing to express my own views, clearly not those of the department, on a matter that should concern all citizens: the unprecedented politicization of the office of the attorney general,” said James D. Herbert, assistant U.S. attorney for the District of Massachusetts, in a letter to The Boston Globe published Thursday.
Herbert said he felt compelled to speak out against Barr after the attorney general earlier this month lambasted the prosecutors who work for him.
“The attorney general acts as though his job is to serve only the political interests of Donald J. Trump. This is a dangerous abuse of power,” Herbert wrote, citing Barr’s misleading summary of the Mueller Report and his false claims about mail-in voting.
More recently, Barr took the unprecedented step of throwing the weight of the Justice Department behind Trump in a lawsuit filed by a rape accuser. Barr also recently designated New York City, Seattle and Portland, Oregon, “anarchist jurisdictions” in a bid to cut federal funding to the cities perceived as liberal.
“William Barr has done the president’s bidding at every turn,” Herbert wrote. “For 30 years I have been proud to say I work for the Department of Justice, but the current attorney general has brought shame on the department he purports to lead.”
HuffPost reached out to Barr’s office for comment.