A group of Republican presidential appointees who once served in the Justice Department and in other legal roles have endorsed Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden.
The eight former officials who announced their support for Biden on Tuesday argued that the candidate facing off against President Trump can bring back “basic honesty and integrity” to decision-making in the Justice Department and Executive Branch.
“I think a lot of us are extremely alarmed, frankly, at the threat of autocracy,” Donald Ayer, deputy attorney general during the George H.W. Bush administration, told Politico. “He’s going to be unleashed if he gets a second term. I don’t know what’s going to stop him.”
The others who endorsed Biden include: Alan Charles Raul, who worked in the George W. Bush, George H.W. Bush, and Ronald Reagan administration; Charles Fried, who worked in the Reagan administration; Stuart Gerson, who worked for the H.W. Bush administration; Peter Keisler, who worked in the W. Bush administration; Paul Rosenweig, who worked in the W. Bush administration; and Robert Shanks, who worked in the Reagan administration. They were joined by J.W. Verret, a former chief economist and senior counsel to the House Committee on Financial Services who worked for Trump’s presidential transition team.
Their endorsement of Biden came a day after a group of more than two dozen former GOP lawmakers announced their support for the former vice president. Former Arizona GOP Sen. Jeff Flake, who had a fraught relationship with the president during their overlap in the Senate and White House respectively, was a member of the Republican Biden-backers.
There are roughly 70 days left until Election Day. Biden leads Trump in most national polls.
