Trump’s Attacks On U.S. Attorneys And “The Rule Of Law In Virginia” For Allegedly Refusing To Prosecute Political Rivals

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The following statement was released by Virginia Senator Tim Kaine regarding what he calls “Donald Trump’s attack on the rule of law in Virginia.”

I write with a sense of urgency about President Donald Trump’s attack on the rule of law in Virginia.

The Senate has a constitutional power to “advise and consent” on Presidential appointments. One key appointment is a United States Attorney, the chief federal law enforcement officer in a judicial district. Virginia has two U.S. Attorneys, one serving the Western District and one serving the Eastern District.

Mark Warner and I take the responsibility of recommending good candidates for these positions very seriously. We have a bipartisan panel of former U.S. Attorneys and respected lawyers interview applicants. Then we interview their suggested finalists and forward two candidates that we recommend to the White House. We have followed the same process under both Republican and Democratic Presidents and have found great success in helping place well qualified individuals in both prosecutorial and judicial positions in the Commonwealth.

In April, we forwarded our recommendations to President Trump for the two U.S. Attorneys positions in Virginia. We recommended two candidates for each post. The White House Counsel’s office and the Department of Justice thoroughly reviewed our recommendations, interviewed the candidates themselves, and conferred with President Trump. In May, he nominated Erik Siebert to be the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia. He later nominated Todd Gilbert to be the U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Virginia. The President felt so confident in the quality of these leaders that he had the Department of Justice appoint them to serve in an interim capacity even before the Senate confirmation process was complete.

Erik Siebert began his career as a police officer in Washington D.C. before attending law school, then began a stellar career as a prosecutor with the U.S. Attorney’s office in the Eastern District. He rose through the ranks and achieved notable success as a prosecutor and also in management positions within one of the most important law enforcement agencies in the nation. The Eastern District, as home to the Pentagon, CIA, numerous military bases and national security agencies, has one of the most complex dockets of any federal district in the country.

Todd Gilbert is a former state prosecutor in the Shenandoah Valley who was then elected as a Republican member of the Virginia General Assembly. He served on the Courts of Justice Committee and later achieved the honor of serving as Speaker of the Virginia House of Delegates. He resigned his position in the legislature when President Trump appointed him as the interim U.S. Attorney for the Western District.

Despite the superb qualifications of these individuals, and despite the fact that President Trump and his legal advisors at the White House and Department of Justice reviewed, approved, nominated and appointed them to serve as interim U.S. Attorneys even before the Senate confirmed them, the President has now forced both of them to resign.

Todd Gilbert resigned about a month after his appointment as interim U.S. Attorney as he refused Department of Justice pressure to demote a longtime non-political attorney from the leadership team in his office. Erik Siebert resigned on September 19 as he refused Administration pressure to bring a baseless criminal case against someone who President Trump sees as a political opponent.

When asked on September 19 about Siebert, Trump admitted: “I want him out.” Trump later bragged about firing Siebert on his social media account. Bizarrely, he claimed that one reason was that Senator Warner and I had recommended him and that we were “bad guys” and “bad Senators.” He seems to have entirely forgotten that he himself nominated Siebert and Gilbert to be U.S. Attorneys!

It’s clear that Donald Trump wants federal prosecutors to do his political bidding instead of carry out justice. He has been doing this in D.C., New Jersey, and across the country where he has already installed his loyalists as U.S. Attorneys, and now he is doing it in Virginia. And this is just one of many actions that the President is taking that demonstrates a contempt for the rule of law, beginning with the pardoning of January 6 convicts on his first day in office.

This matters to me in a very powerful way. I practiced law for 17 years in both the Eastern and Western Districts and believe deeply in the integrity of these two U.S. Attorney’s offices. And, having lived long ago in Honduras when it suffered under a military dictatorship, I know that leaders who ignore the rule of law bring catastrophic consequences to everyday people.

You have my pledge that I will do everything I can to uphold the rule of law in Virginia and act to check anyone’s efforts, even the President of the United States, who tries to tear it down.

Sincerely,