Chicago City Wire

A former judge is calling on the U.S. Attorney’s Office to increase its prosecution of gang and gun crime in Chicago as President Trump deploys federal agents.

“We never needed these people before but for three years the state attorney Kim Foxx has decided that the best way to be the chief law enforcement officer in this County is not to enforce the law,” said Pat O’Brien, a former judge elected to the Cook County Circuit Court where he presided for eight years.

O'Brien is currently campaigning on the Republican ballot to unseat Foxx in November. 

President Trump announced on July 22 that the Department of Justice is sending hundreds of ATF, DEA, U.S. Marshals, Homeland Security and FBI agents to address violent crime under an initiative called "Operation Legend," according to media reports.

“This is a situation where it's been recognized that Kim Foxx is not doing her job when it comes to drugs and guns,” O’Brien said on a July 23 Zoom press conference. “It’s a recognition of her ineffectiveness.”

In cases involving guns where federal agents arrest gang members and refer charges to State Attorney Foxx, O’Brien foresees a revolving door.

“Typically, on a gun charge, the federal government's looking for someone who, when arrested, is determined to have other convictions and it's those other convictions that make that person eligible for a greater sentence,” he said. “If a person was arrested with a gun and had no prior conviction, absent any other kinds of activity, that case would likely be handled by the state's attorney's office and, under this state's attorney, the case would probably be lost.”

The move by the Trump administration to bring in federal agents, according to NBC Chicago, comes on the heels of 15 people shot at a funeral on July 21 and a young girl shot in the head during a family car ride.

“For God's sake, get a grand jury up, call the gang members in front of that grand jury and start to break down this wall of silence that gang members put up,” O’Brien said.

O’Brien criticized Foxx for allegedly failing to press 100 murder charges against arrestees connected with drugs and guns as Chicago police requested.

“My assertion is that her belief about racial justice doesn't involve actually putting violent criminals in jail,” he said.

As previously reported, the former judge has accused Foxx of prioritizing a political career over criminal convictions.

“Kim Foxx saw what happened to Amy Klobuchar,” said O'Brien. “She has her eye set on a higher office and being a good prosecutor, which means being effective and actually putting people in jail, is not the way to get there. She does not want to have a reputation as a prosecutor who is effective.”

Some experts say a reputation for being a tough prosecutor might have cost Klobuchar the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination.