Neal Katyal and Joshua Geltzer in NYT on how bad it is at Justice...
The resignations are a forceful public signal that something is seriously awry with the Justice Department under Mr. Barr. A hallmark of the department, where both of us worked, is its tradition of political independence, forged over decades since its creation in 1870. Neither of us ever heard of career civil servants resigning because they believed the attorney general was acting politically.
Never — and that’s even accounting for the department’s strong conservatives and liberals in its career ranks.
Ms. Dannehy poses a looming further threat to Mr. Barr. She didn’t just withdraw from the investigation; she resigned from the department entirely. That means Mr. Barr can’t muzzle her — and, in turn, she can warn Congress and the rest of us about what prompted such a dramatic move ...
by a highly regarded career public servant who had previously managed to oversee the investigation into the politically fraught firings of seven U.S. attorneys in the George W. Bush administration.
America’s framers understood the presidency “to be a fiduciary position, a position of trust.”
In turn, those who become civil servants bestow their own trust that all presidents — regardless of party — will take seriously the executive branch entrusted to them. Mr. Trump is violating that trust, ever more frequently, ever more flagrantly, with help from allies like Mr. Barr as he tries to bend the executive branch to serve his personal will. Public servants are telling us it’s unsustainable. It’s on the rest of us to listen.