Thread by @hsu_spencer

NEW Former U.S. prosecutors in Washington call on new head Tim Shea to assert independence from Barr, Trump washingtonpost.com/local/legal-is…

The letter was drafted independently by assistants to former Nixon-appointed U.S. attorneys Earl J. Silbert — who oversaw the initial investigation of the Watergate break-in — and Thomas A. Flannery, whom Silbert succeeded when Nixon also Flannery a federal judge.

Prominent signers: Charles R. Work, Republican appointee and fmr partner in charge of McDermott Will & Emery in D.C.; Richard Shine, a former DOJ fraud section branch chief under six presidents; and Robert Ogren, former fraud section chief.
The letter: washingtonpost.com/context/contex…

ICYMI Separately, frmr acting U.S. AG Stuart Gerson — who served under AG Barr for George H.W. Bush — wrote that Shea’s appointment and naming of outside attys to oversee sensitive cases “has caused a strongly negative reaction among career prosecutors [in D.C.] and elsewhere.”

A former GOP adviser to H.W. Bush and George W. Bush, Gerson wrote in @just_security blog, “Many citizens both inside and outside the Department of Justice are asking whether DOJ stands for the rule of law or for the rule of an authoritarian administration. . . .

"There is no room for error or even the perception of it being otherwise [than the former]," Gerson concluded. justsecurity.org/68803/let-the-…