NBC News reports:

Progressive prosecutors, coming off one of the biggest years in their movement’s short history, are looking to 2020 with hope of winning key district attorney offices around the nation and boosting their influence with an overhaul of the system from within.

Attorney General William Barr is standing in their way.

Tensions reached a peak last week after Barr eviscerated the movement in a speech before the Major County Sheriffs of America. He said the “self-styled ‘social justice’ reformers are refusing to enforce entire categories of law, including law against resisting police officers.”

“In so doing, these DAs are putting everyone in danger,” Barr added, asserting that their “policies are pushing a number of America’s cities back toward a more dangerous past.”

In a response signed by about 40 reform-minded prosecutors from around in the country, the progressives said they “spend every day trying to make our communities safer and healthier.”

“We hold our jobs because our communities put us in them after we promised a different and smarter approach to justice, one grounded in evidence-based policies that lift people up while prioritizing the cases that cause real harm,” they wrote. “Sadly, we are perceived as a threat by some who are wedded to the status quo or, even worse, failed policies of past decades.” [Continue reading…]