The heat is being turned up against soft-on-crime, rogue prosecutors after two of the most prominent figures in the movement have been forced to resign in recent weeks. Notoriously bad St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner left office abruptly in May:
Gardner, a Democrat, had been facing an ouster effort by Missouri’s attorney general and was under scrutiny from Republican-led state lawmakers when she announced May 4 that she would resign, effective June 1. But on Tuesday, Gardner announced the end of her tenure. . .
[Missouri Attorney General] Bailey filed a lawsuit in February seeking Gardner’s ouster on three grounds: failure to prosecute existing cases; failure to file charges in cases brought by police; and failure to confer with and inform victims and their families about the status of cases.
Law & Crime chronicled a sampling of Gardner's problematic tenure:
[T]he judge in an assault case called her office a “rudderless ship of chaos” for no-showing yet another violent felony case, this one the shooting of an 11-year-old girl.
“It does not appear (Gardner) has made any reasonable efforts to prevent the resulting chaos,” Judge Michael Noble reportedly remarked last week. The judge promised to appoint a special prosecutor for an indirect criminal contempt hearing at the end of May against Gardner and former Assistant Circuit Attorney Chris Desilets, a prosecutor who was apparently inundated by more than 100 cases. . .
[T]he latest criticism from Judge Noble accused her instead of having a “complete indifference and a conscious disregard for the judicial process” — and that was far from the first time that Gardner and her office made headlines for the wrong reasons.
Repeated no-shows in court, at one point, led to the dismissal of one murder suspect’s charges. A mistrial in another murder case was blamed on poor case management, lawyering and preparation. A murder victim’s family sued Gardner and other officials for allegedly mishandling a case — and there are a number of similar stories. Gardner was memorably disqualified from prosecuting gun-toting lawyers Mark and Patricia McCloskey in the high-profile Black Lives Matter case due to an “appearance in impropriety.” She was also reprimanded for professional misconduct for failing to produce documents amid the investigation of former Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens (R) — and police raided her office.
.@SenTomCotton has dubbed George Soros-backed Rachael Rollins, “one of the most dangerous pro-crime, anti-cop U.S [Attorney] nominees in American history.” https://t.co/fHAgCqBYoc
— RNLA ⚖️ (@TheRepLawyer) December 8, 2021
National Review explained that the radical DA's ultimate downfall came as the result of federal investigations into her conduct:
Rollins, who will resign this week after it became clear the two governmental offices investigating her would release their reports imminently, leaked non-public DOJ information to a reporter in an effort to influence a local DA race and then lied under oath about it — behavior the Office of the Special Counsel termed “one of the most egregious Hatch Act violations that OSC has investigated.”
That office opened an investigation into Rollins after she attended a Democratic National Committee fundraiser alongside first lady Jill Biden. So did the Office of the Inspector General within the Department of Justice, which conducts internal investigations.
Both reports detailed Rollins’s effort to influence the 2022 Suffolk County District Attorney election in favor of her preferred candidate, Richard Arroyo. Rollins actively supported Arroyo and acted as a de facto campaign adviser. On multiple occasions during the campaign, Arroyo suggested Rollins’s office might announce an investigation of Kevin Hayden, the incumbent and Arroyo’s rival.
Fox News added:
In addition to providing the press with sensitive information about Arroyo's challenger, Rollins helped Arroyo last summer with a response to sexual assault allegations he faced on the campaign trail. . .
The report also highlights wrongdoing by Rollins over the use of her personal cellphone to conduct Justice Department business and a trip she took to California that was paid for by an outside group.
To learn more about dangerous rogue prosecutor movement, join RNLA for a conversation with The Heritage Foundation's Zack Smith and Cully Stimson on their forthcoming book, Rogue Prosecutors: How Radical Soros Lawyers Are Destroying America's Communities. Register for the webinar here!
Join us this Friday at 2 p.m. ET for a conversation with @cullystimson and @tzsmith, the authors of the forthcoming book "Rogue Prosecutors: How Radical Soros Lawyers Are Destroying America's Communities."
— RNLA ⚖️ (@TheRepLawyer) June 6, 2023
Register here! https://t.co/BgctJSseb7