A group of former federal prosecutors and human rights lawyers is launching a new organization to investigate political corruption and law enforcement violence that they say President Donald Trump’s Justice Department is ignoring.
The nonprofit, called the Rule of Law Project, plans to gather evidence and witness statements and assemble “prosecution-ready case files,” reported MS NOW, and it will hand those files to state and local prosecutors, or to a future Justice Department that the group says may be less partisan than the current one.
Founder Brad Adams spent 20 years at Human Rights Watch overseeing investigations of state violence. He said the group is responding to a climate in which “senior officials openly engage in corruption and federal agents beat and kill innocent people with impunity.” He pointed to recent reports of graft among politicians and to shootings involving Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers.
“The rule of law is on life support, but it’s all of our responsibility to make sure it doesn’t die,” Adams said.
“I do not think we can break the cycle in this country without criminal accountability,” he added. He also said he expects to work with congressional investigators where appropriate.
The group’s lead investigator will be Mark Blumberg, who spent nearly 30 years in the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division investigating and prosecuting official misconduct. He also served on the FBI’s Shooting Investigation Review Group and on Customs and Border Protection’s National Use of Force Review Board. Blumberg will lead a team of former federal prosecutors and investigators.
“People need to trust that the game is not rigged against them, that the law applies to everyone,” Blumberg said. “Our public officials should model the best behavior for our country, not milk it dry for power and riches.”
The group plans to target officials who appear to have used their offices for personal gain. That includes officials who solicit or accept something of value in exchange for official acts, who improperly try to influence executive or legislative decisions, or whose official acts affect their own finances.
The Rule of Law Project will be funded by private donors it has not named, and it says it will investigate corruption in both parties. It will not have subpoena power.
The effort comes as state and local prosecutors investigating ICE violence have faced obstacles getting evidence from the federal government. Over the past 20 months, news reports have also described FBI corruption investigations that Trump officials shut down.
DOJ officials deny they are ignoring potential crimes and say they assess every case on its merits.