Screenshot from Washington Post email alert.

I am of two minds about this. When good people, like (some) federal career prosecutors, quit the DOJ on principle, it makes a powerful and important statement. (And headlines in the gawdawful Washington Post, apparently.) I could never ask any one of them to stay against their conscience, and to remain part of a captured, right-wing-politicized, weaponized DOJ, tasked with acting like the president’s personal law firm – one with the power to imprison his targets. That is some seriously fascist $#!+, right there.

At the same time, quitting on principle makes the DOJ even worse, with a stronger concentration of amoral, authoritarian @$$holes remaining. Those who leave know this of course, and I have to wonder how many of them have struggled to stay this long for that very reason, hoping to keep their jobs by keeping their heads down, and attempting to persevere until the chaos demons currently in charge are gone. But everyone with a conscience has their breaking point.

There is no good choice here for prosecutors who actually believe in, and often have devoted their entire careers to, the rule of law. Oh, they will be fine, at least financially: prosecutors are heavily recruited by law firms, and private practice pays way, WAAAAY more than a public prosecutor’s salary. They may even get to take some satisfaction in representing clients targeted by their former colleagues at DOJ.

The whole thing just makes me sad, angry, and wishing I had a passport from another country.

Then again, if I had a different passport I wouldn’t be able to forfeit my vote to my Black neighbor. 😈