An open letter on Trump’s Lawlessness:

Donald Trump says he stands for law and order. He stands for neither. His entire life
has been lawless. He has been accused of sexual assault by a long list of women. He
destroyed contractors who built his properties. He abused his pardon power to free
Roger Stone and other convicted criminal friends. That’s what criminals do, not people
who stand for law.

Order of a crushing, undemocratic kind is one of Trump’s passions. He’s just not very
good at it. His mishandling of the pandemic is a study in disorder. His dog-whistle
politics have invited chaos and disorder from white supremacists who are now our
greatest domestic terror threat. We witnessed this yet again when a young Trump
supporter white-supremacist killed two protesters and shot a third in Wisconsin.

If Trump believed in law or order, he would have immediately condemned that shooter
and the police officer who fired seven bullets into Jacob Blake’s back. But those shooters
are white and Jacob Blake is Black, and Trump made no mention of these lawless
incidents of gun violence. Instead, he tweeted that he would send federal forces into
Wisconsin presumably to go after unarmed protesters.

When Trump and his lackeys talk about “law and order,” they are using code words for
white supremacy. Trumpians are not the first politicians to use that phrase to justify
unleashing violence and terror on largely Black communities. Lee Atwater and another
lawless President, Richard Nixon, famously admitted they employed the phrase “law
and order” to racially divide the country, to justify repressive policing, and to push
people into prison. The legacy: America became the most incarcerated country in the
world, where we disproportionately put Black and brown people in jail who don’t belong
there. Before that, leaders used the phrase to justify slave patrols and lynchings.

The reality is that Trump foments lawlessness and disorder in this country, and the
victims are largely Black people and others protesting to protect them. It was Trump
supporters, the Proud Boys, who showed up with weapons in Portland shortly after he
sent in federal law enforcement officials who kidnapped protestors off the street. It was
a Trump supporter, Cesar Sayoc, who sent pipe bombs to prominent Democrats. Trump
supporters attacked a homeless man in Boston, and committed a massacre in a
Pittsburgh synagogue. The examples go on and on. A study by ABC News found ​at least
54 cases where assailants invoked Trump while committing violent acts or threatening
violence, and that was just up until last May.

Of course, Trump is not the only Republican to feign a commitment to law and order but
ensure we don’t have safety. This is the party that refuses to have sensible gun
regulation, passed a law to stop the Center for Disease Control from studying gun
violence in 1996, and pushed a culture of community disinvestment that has resulted in
budget shortfalls met with cuts in social spending and violence prevention initiatives.
But Trump is now the party’s leader, and he eschews safety measures in favor of
disorder more than any politician in America right now.

For those of us who are progressive prosecutors and support a movement for criminal
justice reform deeply rooted in equality, the phrase “law and order” uttered by a
President hellbent on destroying our legal institutions while he steers us toward chaos is
especially galling. We took and meant our oaths to seek justice and to uphold the
Constitution he reviles. We and the movement that elected us have already pushed
back, reminding him the law applies to him and to the government just as it applies to
everyone else. Expect him to attack the movement we lift up for good reason. We
represent an existential threat to the lawlessness and disorder that define him and his
failed political party.

From now until November, Trump and his supporters will run ads designed to frighten
the public. They will make speeches claiming that crime is rampant and everyone is at
risk, even as crime is falling across America. Even this year, as a global pandemic rages
through our communities, creating more unemployment and greater instability, total
crime is down​, and America is much safer than it ever has been before despite its
current national spike in gun violence compared to recent years. Despite actual facts, the
party’s Willie Hortonesque and Charles Stuartlike strategy is clear: terrify voters, largely
those who live in the suburbs and in rural parts of America, by creating a false image of
cities as dangerous cesspools where people with guns are allowed to run amok.

Don’t be fooled by Trump’s election cycle scare tactics and dog whistles. Vote him out.
Vote his lackeys out. Vote like the laws that guarantee your freedom and safety depend
on it. Vote for the order that only justice and equality can restore. Vote like your life
depends on it. It does.

Signed,

Aramis Ayala
State Attorney, Ninth Judicial Circuit, Florida
Wesley Bell
Prosecuting Attorney, St. Louis County, Missouri

Chesa Boudin
District Attorney, San Francisco, California

John Creuzot
District Attorney, Dallas County, Texas

Kim Foxx
Cook County State’s Attorney, Illinois

Kimberly Gardner
Circuit Attorney, City of St. Louis, Missouri

Joe Gonzales
District Attorney, Bexar County, Texas

Mark Gonzalez
District Attorney, Nueces County, Texas

John Hummel
District Attorney, Deschutes County, Oregon

Lawrence Krasner
District Attorney, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Stephanie Morales
Commonwealth’s Attorney, City of Portsmouth, Virginia

Marilyn J. Mosby
State’s Attorney, Baltimore City, Maryland

Rachael Rollins
District Attorney, Suffolk County, Massachusetts

Mike Schmidt
District Attorney, Multnomah County, Oregon