We’re Former Illinois AUSAs and We’re Organizing to Defend the Rule of Law

The following article was drafted by Randall Samborn, a former Assistant U.S. Attorney and Public Information Officer for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Chicago, on behalf of more than a dozen former office alumni who comprise the informal organizing group behind the efforts it describes. We invited them to contribute to Justice Connection and are publishing this article with their permission.

We have no name, no formal organization, and little structure. But as former Assistant United States Attorneys for the Northern District of Illinois, we recognized the power of our collective voice.

As Operation Midway Blitz, involving ICE and Border Patrol agents and National Guard troops, reverberated through our community last fall, several former AUSA colleagues began sharing frustrations at how far and how fast the Department of Justice was departing from its post-Watergate core principles and the values we’ve long cherished. Born from that frustration, we set about to turn our handwringing and energy into action.

We believe that former federal prosecutors have unique professional experience and credibility to speak publicly when those principles appear threatened.

The initial conversations among a few former supervisors expanded to include a dozen other alumni. Together, we brainstormed ways to put our advocacy skills to work and enlist the support of a multitude of former colleagues.

Our core group of organizers was determined from the outset to identify tangible ways the collective voice of hundreds of former federal prosecutors could be effective without merely adding to the noise. To be successful, we understood it was necessary to appeal inclusively to as many former colleagues as possible.

That meant attracting Republicans, independents, and Democrats alike. Some former colleagues practice at small firms, others at large firms; some are retired, while others work outside the legal profession entirely. We also understood the need to respect the professional concerns of alumni whose firms or clients could be affected by actions of the current administration, including attorneys who continue to represent clients before our former office and other DOJ components nationwide.

Before reaching out to the larger population of former AUSAs in Chicago and Rockford, the core organizing group conducted preliminary research and identified several examples of the types of efforts we would propose engaging in as private citizens.

The list included submitting a public comment on the proposed Justice Department rule to exempt current and former DOJ attorneys from state ethics investigations and discipline; the opportunity to participate in litigation, either as counsel of record or amici, involving rule of law issues, including election integrity and voting rights; and to align with and support other organizations, including Justice Connection and Keep Our Republic, to promote and protect the rule of law and equal justice under the law.

We curated email addresses of hundreds of former colleagues and removed those with current federal government employment, including judges and anyone with a .gov address. In late March, we distributed our first email, titled “Call to Action,” to more than 350 former civil and criminal AUSAs. That email, signed by 14 members of the initial organizing group (now 17), stated, in part:

There have been certain actions taken by the Department of Justice that have raised serious concerns that the Department is ignoring its founding principles. As lawyers who cherish the role DOJ should play in our criminal justice system, we feel compelled to speak and act against the troubling events underway at the Department, and we invite you to participate in those efforts. We would like to provide opportunities for tangible action under the former NDIL AUSA banner. Each and every action we propose will be non-partisan.

A week later, we circulated our draft public comment on the proposed DOJ rule regarding state ethics investigations. On April 6, the comment was submitted with 134 signatories, all former NDIL AUSAs, including three who had the distinction of serving both as AUSAs and later as United States Attorney.

Notably, the list of names spanned six decades of public service and seven Presidents, from Ronald Reagan to the current administration. Both the initial email and our first action attracted local media interest, which helped amplify our message.

Since then, our core group continues to assess and debate the merits of potential future actions. We provided former colleagues with information about endorsing Keep Our Republic’s Principles for the Independence of the Legal Profession, as well as ways to support model legislation developed by the Brennan Center for Justice that would create state law criminal prohibitions against armed interference with voting rights, paralleling existing federal statutes.

In each instance, we’ve invited our former colleagues to participate or not on a case-by-case basis, solely in their capacity as private citizens.

Our latest action involved a public statement regarding the April 28 indictment of former FBI Director James Comey. Drafting and circulating the statement took nearly two weeks—a reminder that consensus-building among more than 100 former prosecutors is rarely nimble.

Ultimately, 105 former colleagues signed the statement we released on May 11. (Former Chicago U.S. Attorney Patrick J. Fitzgerald, who represents Mr. Comey, was walled off from the effort and did not see it until it was public.)

Mr. Comey has often echoed a chorus of bipartisan legal luminaries, including former Justice Department officials, judges, and scholars who tell us that silence is dangerous and that preserving the rule of law requires public engagement, explanation, and speaking out.

Erez Reuveni, a former Justice Department attorney and whistleblower, told NPR last year: “Because the voice of one, that’s one thing, fine; the voice of two, that’s better; but a chorus? It’s hard to ignore that.”

Last month, retired Federal Appeals Judge J. Michael Luttig headlined numerous judges, legal scholars, and journalists who gathered at a symposium, “Neither Sword Nor Purse,” at the University of Washington School of Law to address preserving the rule of law and an independent judiciary.

Their remarks serve as a reminder to those of us who can, to use our voices and be heard.

That’s exactly what loosely organized former Assistant U.S. Attorneys in Northern Illinois ─ united by our shared belief that serving in that office was the greatest professional privilege many of us will ever experience ─ are trying to do. We encourage former AUSAs from the 92 other U.S. Attorney’s Offices to follow our lead.

Justice Connection can help support the organizing efforts of former AUSAs. Email us at alumni@thejusticeconnection.org to learn more.

Randall Samborn served in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Illinois under five U.S. Attorneys from 1995-2015.