Barbara McQuade

our constitutional separation of powers, not just among the three federal branches of government, but between the allocation of power between the federal government and state governments.

The people of New York elected Letitia James to be their attorney general.

The people of Manhattan elected Alvin Bragg to be their district attorney.

And so to attack them for their work is a very dangerous thing to that balance of power.

Yeah, one would hope that a person with integrity and who is doing the job they were elected to do would move forward without fear or favor.

That's a phrase prosecutors are fond of using, right?

Without fear or favor.

But when you see your colleagues around the country, not just criticized, but targeted for criminal investigation, and in the case of Jim Comey, indicted, wow, that makes you think twice, right?

Because nobody ever gets in trouble for something they don't do.

And so I remember that hearing one of the greatest criticisms you could hear of one FBI agent of another was to say he follows the principle of he who does nothing does nothing wrong.

That's not the job.

The job is to hold people accountable when they violate the law.

And you have to be brave.

You have to have the courage to do these kinds of things.

But I can imagine the chilling effect that happens when there is

a prosecutor in a state AG's office or a county DA's office, and they see what's happening to others around the country.

And you just say, this one's hard.

Let's skip this one and move on to something else that's more low level so that I don't have to worry about the consequences.

So mortgage fraud is a crime that gets charged with some frequency.

It was charged in my former office a great deal, especially after the 2008 financial meltdown.