Attorney General William Barr. Image: Office of Public Affairs/Flickr
On Friday, the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division filed a statement of interest in a lawsuit filed by a Republican state legislator in Illinois, trying to strike down Gov. J. B. Pritzker's stay-at-home orders. The DOJ's filing both praises the legislator's "strong case" against the governor and urges federal courts to return the matter to state courts, where judges had been more friendly to the GOP's claims.
Georgetown University Law professor Marty Lederman was astonished by the filing — and took to Twitter to emphasize how unusual and outrageous the DOJ's actions were in this case:
