Dems' AG Choice Is Between Lawlessness or Weaponized Prosecution

A majority of voters see American liberals as a monolithic movement working on a strict set of talking points. Deeper inspection reveals a political movement in tension. The fight for the Democratic nomination for Michigan attorney general is Exhibit A. It’s a nasty power struggle between the Girlboss wing and the Democratic Socialists.

For Democratic convention delegates voting later this month, this is a pick-your-poison choice for Michigan’s top law enforcement officer. The hard-charging Oakland County Prosecutor Karen McDonald is on one side, and the soft-on-crime civil-rights-minded Washtenaw County Prosecutor Eli Savit is on the other.

Average Michigan voters are certainly in for an absolute gongshow of partisan hackery if either wins over Republican attorney general nominee Doug Lloyd. Here’s the tale of the tape on both.

Karen McDonald scares the shit out of civil-rights groups, second-amendment advocates, and anyone with an IQ higher than room temperature. Weaponizing her office at a level that surpasses even current AG Dana Nessel, McDonald is far more clever, calculated, and competent.

McDonald managed to secure convictions against the Crumbley parents using a novel legal theory never tried before in American jurisprudence, convicting each parent of manslaughter for murderous actions by their son, Ethan Crumbley, even though they weren't present.

That nobody is wincing over the Crumbley convictions is the second-most pernicious example of McDonald’s competence—choosing two villainous parents of a mass shooter, whom they purchased a firearm for—displaying her ability to choose the perfect case to make legal history with total emotional buy-in by the public.

The Crumbleys represent a slippery slope of precedent in manslaughter convictions involving firearms. Opposition to the second amendment and private gun ownership is the key issue McDonald has built her political career on, and there’s zero doubt she intends to stretch, pull, and maximize Michigan’s red flag laws with the resources of the state government at her disposal.

Eli Savit’s problem for voters is different: He won’t prosecute crime. As the chief law enforcement officer of Washtenaw County, Savit operates his office like a civil-rights attorney on a college campus—which, in fact, he sort of is.

Savit spent a career clerking for Ruth Bader Ginsburg and shining up his resume at two Washington D.C.-based white-shoe law firms before working as senior legal counsel for the City of Detroit as Mike Duggan’s corporate shakedown artist.

Entering politics in 2020, Savit was elected to the prosecutor’s office during a Covid-induced blue wave on a platform explicitly featuring far-left wing notions of decarceration, criminal justice reform, and race-based criminology. Publicly declaring his devotion to solving racial disparities in the criminal justice system, he immediately signaled his office’s intent to no longer prosecute drug-related offenses.

But in a more striking move, mirroring former San Francisco Prosecutor Chesa Boudin’s chaotically brief and infamous tenure that resulted in a recall only two years into his term, Savit announced his intent to no longer seek cash bail in Washtenaw County.

The first county prosecutor’s office to make such a bold move in state history, he argued the decision was based on severe racial inequalities exacerbated by his predecessor.

Further abdicating his roll as a prosecutor, Savit has declined to prosecute sex work in his county but is allegedly turbo-focused on human-trafficking. Don’t the two go hand-in-hand?

How do these two interpretations of the liberal order co-exist within Michigan?

Apparently, not very well. Karen McDonald and Eli Savit are locked in a death match, with McDonald having the upperhand for the moment.

While both are dealing with allegations of ethics violations and alleged misuse of their offices, they are also fighting each other in court. Recent campaign flyers fired out across Michigan by Savit’s campaign have highlighted allegations of bribery against McDonald on behalf of prominent wealthy Chaldean business owners in Sterling Heights involving a murder case she was prosecuting.

McDonald has filed a defamation suit against Lakeshore Leaders Fund, which she claims paid for ads on behalf of Savit. Savit has disavowed any knowledge of the ads, but the narrative that McDonald can be bought with campaign contributions persists.

Not that public opinion matters much in this epic battle of liberal vs. progressive wills.

One Ann Arbor resident described the conundrum this way: Do we want crime overly prosecuted by a hardcore resistance mom? Or no crime prosecuted at all? That is the current state of play.