At least nine former San Diego federal prosecutors have joined nearly 2,000 Justice Department alumni nationwide in calling for U.S. Attorney General William Barr to resign — the second such letter in three months.
In February, it was the Roger Stone sentencing case that raised hackles. This time, it’s Barr’s effort to dismiss charges against former national security adviser Michael Flynn.
A new signatory was Alan Bersin, the former San Diego Unified schools superintendent (1998-2005) who was a U.S. attorney in San Diego five years during the Clinton administration.
“Make no mistake,” says the letter posted on Medium.com. “The Department’s action is extraordinarily rare, if not unprecedented. If any of us, or anyone reading this statement who is not a friend of the president, were to lie to federal investigators in the course of a properly predicated counterintelligence investigation, and admit we did so under oath, we would be prosecuted for it.”
The 900-word DOJ alumni statement, posted Monday, also urged Congress to formally censure Barr for “his repeated assaults on the rule of law in doing the president’s personal bidding rather than acting in the public interest.”
“I signed because I am sickened by Barr’s obvious politicizing federal prosecutions and demeaning line prosecutors and the FBI, said Raymond J. “Jerry” Coughlan Jr., a former San Diego assistant U.S. attorney with 10 years in several offices.
He said he served in both the D.C. and San Diego offices as well as at “main justice” in Washington.
“The single most important thing we had when appearing in court for the United States was our credibility,” Coughlan told Times of San Diego. “Politics played no role in our positions or arguments.”
He said the presumption of honesty and neutrality has been terribly tarnished by Barr’s conduct.
“Barr’s motion also trashes the FBI and will make testimony and investigations by the FBI suspect and subject to all sorts of attacks,” he said via email. “I am hopeful the letter signed by some great former prosecutors and op-eds like those by [Laurence] Tribe, [Mary] McCord and [Neal] Katyal will lead Judge [Emmet] Sullivan to question the legal and factual bases of the motion and to deny it.”
Other San Diego alumni of the DOJ signing the letter were:
- Stephen Anear, who was special assistant to the U.S. attorney in San Diego, serving seven years during the George W. Bush and Clinton administrations.
- Thomas Coffin, who was chief of the Criminal Division of the San Diego office, with 21 years under Reagan, Nixon, George H.W. Bush, Ford and Carter.
- Roger Haines, who was chief of the Appellate Section of the San Diego office and worked for DOJ between 1978 and 2007.
- Sam Liccardo, who was an assistant U.S. attorney in San Diego from 1998 to 2000 before he became a San Jose councilman and now mayor of San Jose.
- Michael Lipman, who was assistant U.S. attorney chief of Fraud Unit in San Diego and worked in DOJ from 1976 to 1983.
- Robert “Bob” Rose, who was assistant U.S. attorney and chief of Criminal Division in San Diego.
- And Bob Semmer, who was an assistant U.S. attorney in San Diego when he received the Justice Department “Directors Award” in 1983.
U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan of the District of Columbia is overseeing the case of Flynn, who pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his communications with the Russian ambassador to the United States.
“We urge Judge Sullivan to closely examine the [DOJ’s] stated rationale for dismissing the charges — including holding an evidentiary hearing with witnesses — and to deny the motion and proceed with sentencing if appropriate,” said the letter.
The former feds concede their letter won’t achieve its Barr-stepdown goals.
“We recognized [in February] that there was little chance that he would do so,” they said. “We continue to believe that it would be best for the integrity of the Justice Department and for our democracy for Attorney General Barr to step aside.”
Coughlan added: “It’s time for Flynn to begin serving his sentence like anyone else who pled guilty to making false statements.”
