Former DOJ officials warned in a new letter that the “fabric of the nation, the rule of law and the future of the Democracy are at stake in this election.”

For Justice Department employees who had spent weeks contemplating the possibility of two-time federal criminal defendant Donald Trump returning to the presidency, Joe Biden’s decision to drop out and endorse Kamala Harris offered a sense of relief.

Former and current Justice Department employees believe that a future president Harris, a former prosecutor, unlike Trump, would respect the norms that have been in place to ensure DOJ independence in the half-century since Watergate.

Those fears of another Trump term are central to a new letter endorsing Harris, signed by more than 40 former Justice Department officials who served under presidents of both parties. They include former Attorney General Loretta Lynch, former deputy attorneys general Sally Yates, David Ogden and Jamie Gorelick, and John McKay, who was appointed as a top federal prosecutor in Washington state during the George W. Bush administration, among others.

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Trump “regularly ignored the rule of law” as president, the former officials wrote, pointing out that one of his first acts was an “unconstitutional Muslim travel ban” and one of his last acts was an attempt “to stay in power by defying election results and the will of the American people.”