Two for­mer U.S. Attor­neys for West­ern Wash­ing­ton, broth­ers Mike and John McK­ay, are among twen­ty Repub­li­can-appoint­ed for­mer fed­er­al pros­e­cu­tors who endorsed Demo­c­ra­t­ic nom­i­nee Joe Biden on Tues­day and described Don­ald Trump as “a threat to the rule of law in our country.”

“The Pres­i­dent has clear­ly con­veyed that he expects his Jus­tice Depart­ment appointees and pros­e­cu­tors to serve his per­son­al and polit­i­cal inter­ests in the han­dling of cer­tain cas­es – such as the inves­ti­ga­tions into for­eign elec­tion inter­fer­ence and the pros­e­cu­tion of his polit­i­cal asso­ciates – and has tak­en action against those who have stood up for the inter­ests of jus­tice,” the for­mer pros­e­cu­tors said in an open let­ter to the peo­ple of the Unit­ed States.

The let­ter is signed by U.S. Attor­neys who have served under Pres­i­dents George W. Bush, George H.W. Bush, Ronald Rea­gan, Ger­ald Ford, Richard Nixon and Dwight Eisenhower.

The ex‑U.S. attor­neys took issue with the deploy­ment of fed­er­al offi­cers to such cities as Port­land and Seat­tle amid demon­stra­tions that fol­lowed the mur­der of George Floyd at the hands of Min­neapo­lis police officers.

“(Trump) has under­mined the (Jus­tice) Department’s abil­i­ty to uni­fy and lead our nation’s law enforce­ment by pick­ing polit­i­cal fights with state and local offi­cials in a naked effort to demo­nize and blame them for the dis­tur­bances in our cities over the past sev­er­al months,” said the statement.

Mike McK­ay helped run the 1988 pres­i­den­tial cam­paign of George H.W. Bush in this state, a cam­paign which saw “Pop­py” Bush vis­it Wash­ing­ton sev­en times. He sub­se­quent­ly served as chief fed­er­al pros­e­cu­tor for West­ern Washington.

John McK­ay was named U.S. Attor­ney under Pres­i­dent George W. Bush. He was removed in 2007 by Attor­ney Gen­er­al Alber­to Gon­za­les for being insuf­fi­cient­ly polit­i­cal. He was part of an exten­sive purge of U.S. attorneys.

Dur­ing the spring, John McK­ay signed a let­ter call­ing for the res­ig­na­tion of Attor­ney Gen­er­al William Barr. It decried a Depart­ment of Jus­tice deci­sion to seek a lenient prison term for long­time Trump polit­i­cal fix­er Roger Stone, and the deci­sion to drop charges against for­mer Nation­al Secu­ri­ty Advis­er Michael Flynn.

Fly­nn has plead­ed guilty to lying to the FBI.

“I signed for the rea­son that this is yet anoth­er exam­ple of Attor­ney Gen­er­al Barr trash­ing the rule of law to please the Pres­i­dent,” said McK­ay, who has prac­ticed with the law firm Davis Wright Tremaine and taught at the Seat­tle Uni­ver­si­ty School of law since leav­ing the Depart­ment of Justice.

The for­mer U.S. Attor­neys, in their Tues­day let­ter, vouched for Biden, describ­ing Barack Oba­ma’s for­mer deputy as a capa­ble healer.

The let­ter declared: “We firm­ly believe that Vice Pres­i­dent Joe Biden is the can­di­date who can – and will – pro­vide the lead­er­ship we need to refo­cus the Jus­tice Depart­ment on the cause of impar­tial jus­tice and to address the deep seat­ed soci­etal issues that are roil­ing our coun­try today.”