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DOJ Prosecution Chief Resigns After Being Ordered to Seize a Bank Account Without Probable Cause [1]

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Date: 2025-02-18

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Partial transcript

Nicolle Wallace:

One of the country's top prosecutors, the head of the criminal division at the U.S. Attorney's office in Washington, D.C… has resigned. Her name is Denise Chung. She has been in that office since 2000. She departed abruptly after interim U.S. Attorney Ed Martin asked for her resignation when she refused to send an order to a bank to freeze assets. She believed there was not enough evidence to do that. Chung praised her colleagues in her resignation letter this morning for, “following the facts and the law and complying with our moral, ethical and legal obligations”.

The need to focus on that exact mission, following the facts and the law guided by ethical obligations, is the subject of a letter from hundreds of former federal prosecutors, including former special counsel Jack Smith. They write this: “As prosecutors, we were rightly prohibited from making criminal charging decisions based on someone's political association, activities or beliefs, or because of our personal feelings about them. Against this backdrop, we have watched with alarm as these values have been tested by recent actions of the department’s leadership. Some of you have been ordered to make charging decisions based expressly on considerations other than the facts and the law, including to serve solely political purposes. Several of you have resigned, and others are wondering what will happen to the department we served and revere. To all of you, we communicate this. We salute and admire the courage many of you have already exhibited, and that will guide all of you as you continue to serve the interests of justice. You have responded to ethical challenges of a type no public servant should ever be forced to confront with principle and conviction in the finest traditions of the Department of Justice.”

Let's bring in to our conversation former top prosecutor at the department of justice, MSNBC legal analyst Andrew Weissmann. He signed that open letter to current federal prosecutors we just read from. Also joining us, NBC news justice reporter Ryan Riley. Tim is still with us as well. Ryan Riley on the reporting. Do we know whose asset she was asked to freeze that she refused to freeze?

Ryan Riley:

>> Yeah. Three sources tell NBC news this had to do with grants that were put out during the. Biden administration, involving the environment through the Environmental Protection Agency. And so but what you're talking about ultimately here is the government ordering, ordering is the key word here, a bank to freeze assets that no longer in the possession of the federal government. And in order to meet that threshold there is a line that you would have you would have to meet.

And so she was not willing, she said that the evidence did not support writing a letter to the bank, telling them to freeze these assets. And that's why she sort of drew the line here. What the letter that I read, what it lays out is that she was, you know, willing to sign a letter essentially saying that there could should be further investigation here. But what it sounds like is that the FBI was going to be willing to send this letter to the bank, but that she and she said that, you know, there could be something more investigation looked into this. But, you know, if you step back for a moment, what you have ultimately is, according to her resignation letter, the deputy attorney general, acting deputy attorney general of the United States office directing a criminal prosecution and skipping all of those layers that typically go in between here. The idea was that there was going to be this opening of a criminal investigation involving a line assistant U.S. Attorney within the U.S. Attorney's office in D.C, and that was going to be directed by the deputy attorney general's office. So, you know, this is a huge another significant, another significant resignation. She is someone who's very well respected within the Justice department and, you know, by her a lot of her colleagues. So this is something I think that, is another sort of warning sign about the way that the Trump administration intends to and is using the Justice Department so far.

Nicolle Wallace:

>> Well, I mean, let me read some of what you're what you're laying out from her letter. She writes this: “I was asked to review documentation supplied by the office of the deputy attorney general to open a criminal investigation into whether a contract had been unlawfully awarded by an executive agency before the change in administration, and to issue grand jury subpoenas pursuant to this investigation. I was told there was a time sensitivity and action had to be taken that day because there was concern that contract awardees could continue to draw down on accounts handled by the bank handling the disbursements. I confirmed with others, all of whom have substantial white collar criminal prosecution experience and reviewed documentation provided by the deputy attorney general and determining whether the predicate for opening such a grand jury investigation existed. Despite assessing that the existing documents on their face did not meet the threshold, an office of deputy attorney general rep stated that he believes sufficient predication existed, including in the form of a video where statements were made by a former political appointee of the executive agency in question.”

…

Andrew Weissmann:

This … freeze letter is not some … nice little letter. It's seizing an account under the fourth amendment. That is a seizure. It requires probable cause. It is a constitutional prohibition on what the government can do unless it has that factual predication. And she is saying, I looked at this, my career people looked at this, and we could not go forward. And she is being told do it anyway and for her to resign over this. Think of somebody who spent that long devoted to the Justice Department, to public service and to policy. She may have agreed with it or disagreed with from time to time. That's, you know, that's what happens when you're in government. You don't agree with everything. But, you know, we've talked about this. Elections have consequences for this. For her to be saying, I cannot do this. It's because it is so over the line. It is a constitutional prohibition that she is saying, I am not doing that. This could not be more serious, not just because this is like a canary in the coal mine. It's the coal mine coming. It is. You have to put it in context of what we were just talking about. And there's going to be a hearing tomorrow in the southern district of New York. It's all of a piece of really lawless action that's being ordered to be taken by people who have taken an oath to the Constitution.

End transcript

Emphasis added throughout.

I felt moved to get this out right away. I'm signing off for the night. Will be back in the morning to join the discussion.

[END]
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