The Justice Department's "nakedly political" prosecutions have made it harder to convict criminals, which will hurt the public, a former prosecutor warned.
In a Tuesday Substack article, former U.S. attorney Harry Litman argued that the reprisal prosecutions dominating the headlines, including cases against figures like James Comey and Letitia James, are only one face of what he called "the other side of the DOJ's corruption." The more damaging fallout lands where few are looking, he warned.
Litman pointed to a run of losses in Washington's federal courthouse under D.C. U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro, whose office has "spent the presumption [of regularity] down to nothing." Jurors now take their seats "already jaundiced" toward a department they no longer trust, so even strong cases are buckling, he warned.
"The damage comes home to roost in other righteous cases that have always been the hallmark of the DOJ," Litman wrote. "We're seeing cases that likely would have and should have proceeded to conviction coming up short, with tangible costs borne by the public."
His prime example is accused MS-13 ringleader Moises Rivera-Luna, who is "no sandwich-thrower," as Litman put it. The government accused Rivera-Luna of ordering murders from a Salvadoran jail cell. Two D.C. juries deadlocked, and Pirro's office plans to try him a third time in September by "running the same script that failed twice," Litman wrote.
Litman branded the pattern the "hidden costs of the Justice Department's corruption and fecklessness," and he stressed that the bill for those hidden costs doesn't land on Trump.
"When Rivera-Luna walks out of that courtroom because the jury could not bring itself to trust the government that charged him, the price is not paid by Jeanine Pirro or by the president who installed her," Litman wrote. "It is paid on the streets of Washington."
He placed the blame on Pirro and Attorney General Todd Blanche because they're "proud to champion" the abandonment of decades of prosecutorial norms.
"Make no mistake," Litman warned. "It's the public that pays the wages of the corruption."