It’s not unusual for new presidents to fire the nation’s 93 U.S. attorneys and hire new ones aligned with their own priorities. San Diego U.S. Attorney Tara McGrath was recently one of them. But she told KPBS that the Trump administration’s shift in goals is so dramatic that public safety is at risk.
Why did you agree to speak to KPBS today?
McGrath: I'm concerned about public safety and the changes that are occurring within the Department of Justice. And I'm also concerned about the way that federal public servants are being demonized and demoralized in the public discourse.
You left on Feb. 12. Give me a second of what life was like for federal prosecutors in the San Diego U.S. attorney's office in the few weeks before you left.
McGrath: I have worked for — I think — eight attorneys general, and I've worked for Republican administrations and Democratic administrations. And I have never seen anything like the shift in the culture and temperature in the office. In all of the years that I have worked for the Department of Justice, there has been turmoil and stress and demoralization and insecurity throughout the federal workforce in the last month, certainly within the Department of Justice and the U.S. attorney's office included.
And what specifically is causing that turmoil?
McGrath: It's not the change. People are used to change. We're used to working for one administration and then another. It's the shift in rhetoric about the lack of respect and appreciation for what federal employees do. What's the problem is the shift from certain law enforcement components and their expertise to doing work that's outside of the expertise.
So how does all of this affect public safety?
McGrath: Public safety is impacted — I think — primarily in this region due to the shift in the direction of certain agencies being refocused on immigration enforcement. It's the movement of agencies like the FBI, who normally are focused on domestic terrorism, responding to Guardian complaints. A Guardian complaint is when a teacher is concerned about how a student's behaving, or a neighbor who is worried that their next-door neighbor is spending too much time in his garage or making weird statements. And they report that information to the FBI. And the FBI generates this information in a Guardian complaint, and then they go out and question: does this person have access to guns? Are they trolling on social media sites that could set off alarm bells? That's what a guardian call is that. That's what the FBI does.
So they are preventing mass shootings.
McGrath: They're preventing mass shootings, they're preventing terrorist attacks, they're preventing hate crimes. And they do that through generating intelligence. And they have an expertise in IT analysts and agents who track this information in our district and across the United States. And they do that day in and day out to keep track of who might be setting off alarm bells. And then they respond also equally. The ATF, for example — Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. They are the preeminent experts in investigating wildfires. That's who we send out nationwide to figure out the source of a wildfire so we can prevent a wildfire from happening again if we understand why it occurred. Another example, the Drug Enforcement Administration. They are experts in identifying where a fentanyl dealer might have obtained the fentanyl, tracking it back to the smuggling operation, and then the overseas cartel that funneled that toxic poison into our country. That's what DEA does. So we have these organizations that are specialized in really essential components of what keeps people in this country safe from mass shootings, from ghost guns, from fires, from fentanyl. And now those organizations are devoting significant time to immigration enforcement.
What you're describing sounds really scary. Where do you find hope in all of this?
McGrath: Unquestionably, it's in the public servants. They're doing the work because they care about their neighbors and their federal citizens. And where I find hope is in those people, but also in engagement and people paying attention. The turmoil, the demoralization and the lack of accountability that we have seen in the last month is not what Americans expect or deserve from their government. This is not the norm, and we can't allow ourselves to expect or accept this as the norm.
