The Trump Administration Is Coming for Progressive Prosecutors

Following a mass shooting in Philadelphia last week that wounded six police officers and left a neighborhood traumatized, William McSwain, U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, broke from tradition. As prosecutors like Krasner gain more traction with voters, they’ve elicited a backlash that now goes all the way up to the nation’s top law enforcement official. He has bad-mouthed Krasner on Fox’s Tucker Carlson Tonight in March and in June, accusing him of causing violent crime to “skyrocket” and tying him to the liberal billionaire George Soros’ “radical agenda.” In February, McSwain brought federal charges to a gun case after Krasner offered a plea deal he found too lenient. McSwain also claimed in his statement that his office took “70% more violent crime cases this year than we did last year, in response to the District Attorney’s lawlessness.” A spokeswoman for Krasner’s office disputed this, saying she could only find one documented case that could be considered violent where the U.S. attorney filed charges after the DA. Last week Attorney General William Barr denounced all reform-minded prosecutors at a national Fraternal Order of Police conference in New Orleans, calling “reformer” DAs “anti–law enforcement DAs.” Barr, who in 1992 authored “The Case for More Incarceration,” told conference attendees that the rise of “District Attorneys that style themselves as social justice reformers, who spend their time undercutting the police, letting criminals off the hook, and refusing to enforce the law,” is “demoralizing to law enforcement and dangerous to public safety.” “Once in office, they have been announcing their refusal to enforce broad swathes of the criminal law,” he said.