Lady Justice Is Fighting Back Tears Witnessing What Is Happening at EDVA
Last month, I proudly followed along as my former colleagues took Google to court again to hash out remedies in the Google Ad Tech case. Being a spectator was fun, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t have “FOMO” given all the great memories from trial last year in Alexandria.
One memory that sticks out is that of being greeted at the Eastern District of Virginia’s (EDVA) Albert V. Bryan United States Courthouse each day by a formidable bronze sculpture of Lady Justice. With the words “justice delayed, justice denied,” she reminds everyone that you need your “running shoes” on in this district. Otherwise, this depiction of Justitia is standard, with her blindly balancing the scales of justice.
If we could see beneath the blindfold, we might find her fighting back tears given what is unfolding in the EDVA. In short, President Trump directed the firing of the chief federal prosecutor there because, following monthslong investigations, the facts his teams uncovered would not support criminal charges against former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James. Many people, such as former AUSA Andrew McCarthy in this recent essay, minimize this saga as unsavory score-settling by a victim of “lawfare.” As McCarthy almost admits, the sordid EDVA affair differs from DOJ prosecutions concerning classified documents and January 6th, but he and others are right that the New York state cases reeked of partiality given prosecutors’ campaign promises of “getting Trump” and the odd charges filed.
But those suggesting we are dealing with apples-to-apples “lawfare” have their heads in the sand, or worse. Sacking career prosecutors for following the facts (and their constitutional oaths) is new ground. Hiring your insurance attorney to bring indictments career prosecutors wouldn’t touch with a ten-foot pole is new ground, as is impatiently DM’ing the Attorney General with prosecutorial mandates.
It’s been encouraging to see renewed circulation of Robert Jackson’s “The Federal Prosecutor” from those trying to emphasize just how un-American and dangerous this new ground is. In a way, Justice Jackson likens federal prosecutors to everyday embodiments of the statues adorning our courthouses when he notes that the American “citizen’s safety lies in the prosecutor who tempers zeal with human kindness, who seeks truth and not victims, who serves the law and not factional purposes, and who approaches his task with humility.”
This safety is vanishing. And even those who incorrectly believe the machinations in the EDVA (and elsewhere) are simply par for an unbecoming course should not cheer on flagrant destruction of the rule of law just because they now have the clubs.
Similarly, no American should entertain dangerous drivel calling federal judges tyrants for enforcing the Constitution when presented with Executive Branch lawlessness. Comey has made one such presentation to one such judge, arguing the case brought against him is vindictive and selective in violation of the First Amendment and Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause. Today, the Justice Department is scheduled to submit its counterarguments. The judge will look at the facts and eventually decide upon the prosecution’s constitutionality, as the constitutional actor in our system empowered to “say what the law is.” The losing party will have the right to appeal. And if the losing party ends up being the Trump Administration, and it remains unhappy after appeals are exhausted, it must simply call on the Legislative Branch to pass a new law barring the conduct they wished was legal.
In other words, just because the Executive Branch wants to replace the rule of law with the kind of rule by fiat from which we rebelled does not mean we are without recourse. The Framers created a layered system of checks and balances to make sure of that. But the system isn’t self-executing. We all have a role to play. To wake up the Legislative Branch, let your elected officials know there will be repercussions for those who don’t support the rule of law. To support the Judicial Branch, respect their role in the constitutional order and support leaders who do the same.
Whatever you do, do not stand idly by. Because We the People will always be “the only legitimate fountain of power” and get “to decide the important question, whether societies of men are really capable or not of establishing good government from reflection and choice, or whether they are forever destined to depend for their political constitutions on accident and force.”
Chase Pritchett was a trial attorney in the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division from 2022 to 2025, where he prosecuted monopolization and other Sherman Act offenses.
