Twenty former Republican-appointed U.S. attorneys said in an open letter backing the presidential candidacy of Joe Biden that President Donald Trump had “politicized the Justice Department, dictating its priorities along political lines and breaking down the barrier that prior administrations had maintained between political and prosecutorial decision making.”

The former top federal prosecutors, including Kenneth Wainstein of Davis Polk & Wardwell who reportedly helped organize the letter, argued that Trump “has clearly conveyed that he expects his Justice Department appointees and prosecutors to serve his personal and political interests in the handling of certain cases.” Wainstein formerly served as the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia.