Prosecutor Quits Trump's Law Enforcement Commission, Saying The Fix Is In
An elected prosecutor who took a role in Donald Trump’s presidential commission on law enforcement has resigned, telling Attorney General William Barr that he is concerned the commission was “intent on providing cover for a predetermined agenda that ignores the lessons of the past” and will issue a final report that “will only widen the divisions in our nation.”
Trump formed the Presidential Commission on Law Enforcement and the Administration of Justice late last October, announcing its formation at the International Association of Chiefs of Police’s annual meeting. Trump’s order mandated that the commission issue a report within one year ― a deadline that falls just days ahead of the 2020 presidential election.
The commission is stacked with members of law enforcement, and the American Civil Liberties Union has questioned whether it is a “sham commission formed only for the purposes of advancing a ‘Thin Blue Line’ law and order agenda.”
John Choi, the elected prosecutor in Ramsey County, Minnesota, served as a member of the commission’s criminal justice system personnel intersection working group. But Choi, whose county includes the city of St. Paul, wrote in a letter to Barr that he was quitting his role on one of the commission’s 17 working groups because he worries the final report “will vilify local prosecutors who exercise their well settled prosecutorial discretion consistent with their community’s values and the interests of justice.”
The Justice Department struck back at Choi, with one official telling HuffPost that Choi didn’t really resign because the working groups had already completed their work. The two chairs of the working group ― former U.S. Attorney Jay Town and Cook County Judge William O’Brien ― also criticized Choi’s work in interviews with HuffPost. Town said Choi offered “very little in substance,” while O’Brien said his opinions “didn’t have a lot of depth.”
Choi wrote in...
