Is the Trump administration — led by a convicted felon who has freed violent insurrectionists, used his pardon powers to free a prolific drug trafficker and aided multiple people accused of and convicted of sex crimes — in position to credibly accuse anyone else of unleashing danger in America?
That’s the legitimacy crisis casting a pall over the Justice Department’s newly announced investigation into Virginia prosecutor Steve Descano, the commonwealth’s attorney of Fairfax County.
“This investigation will uncover whether this prosecutor is putting the community at risk in offering sweetheart deals to illegal immigrants charged with serious crimes,” Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon said in a press release.
Dhillon, who leads the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, said the probe will focus on whether Descano “discriminated against United States citizens by offering preferential treatment only to illegal alien criminal defendants.” Dhillon has faced mass staff defections amid claims that she has perverted her workplace into a tool to target many of the rights that the office was designed to protect.
In a post on X, Descano wrote:
Today, I received notice of a Department of Justice investigation into my office regarding one of our policies. My policies are fair, legal, and reflect the values of my community.
Descano was elected in 2019 despite right-wing efforts to spur hysteria around progressive prosecutors and the policies they tend to support, such as ending cash bail and reducing mandatory minimum sentences. Conservatives have targeted Descano ever since, while deploying the time-honored GOP tactic of cherry-picking incidents of violent crime to portray liberals as supporters of criminal activity.
In December, The Intercept reported that that a nonprofit organization called the Law Enforcement Legal Defense Fund, which fashions itself as being pro-police, pushed the Trump administration to launch the very investigation that Dhillon just announced.
Some important context here is that Dhillon has faced criticism from some in the MAGA movement who have felt the DOJ has not acted quickly enough to wage legal warfare against liberals, a priority she has promoted in the past.
A legal expert told The Intercept that such accusations against Descano are a misrepresentation of prosecutorial discretion:
“The MO of MAGA groups like LELDF is to partner with the Trump Administration to weaponize the justice system and go after people they don’t like — in this case, reform prosecutors they disagree with philosophically,” said Michael Collins, an independent consultant who works on prosecutorial reform.
“Laws designed to protect people’s rights and curb official misconduct shouldn’t be repurposed to target officials over policy differences or prosecutorial discretion,” Collins said. “This kind of legal warfare erodes trust in our justice system and undermines the very protections these laws were meant to uphold.”
The Washington Post pointed to a few examples of judges who have disagreed with some of the plea deals Descano reached. But it’s worth noting that those disagreements don’t prove that Descano discriminated against American citizens.
Former immigration lawyer Aaron Reichlin-Melnick framed Dhillon’s announcement as absurd, saying Descano’s plea deals were consistent with typical prosecutorial actions.
Later in his thread, Reichlin-Melnick explained that prosecutorial decisions such as Descano’s are an essential part of plea bargaining that helps prosecutors secure punishments for offenders.
Meanwhile, on the same day the Descano investigation was announced, the DOJ launched a raid on the offices of Virginia state Sen. Louise Lucas, who played a key role in Democrats’ successful redistricting effort in Virginia ahead of this year’s midterm elections. And I would argue the Descano probe suffers from some of the same credibility issues that my colleague Steve Benen said have plagued the Lucas raid. That is: In the absence of more details, it’s possible that wrongdoing has been committed — but the Trump administration has given the public no reason whatsoever to take its word.
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