A group of former federal prosecutors and human rights lawyers has formed a private organization to investigate political corruption and violence by law enforcement that its organizers say the Trump Justice Department is ignoring. The Rule of Law Project plans to document cases and deliver its findings to prosecutors capable of pursuing them.

Organizers describe the group as a nonpartisan nonprofit that will investigate members of either political party. It will present evidence to state and local prosecutors or hold cases for a future Justice Department that organizers believe may operate less politically than the current one.

Founder Brad Adams spent 20 years with Human Rights Watch overseeing investigations into state violence. He said the project responds to a climate in which “senior officials openly engage in corruption and federal agents beat and kill innocent people with impunity.”

“The rule of law is on life support, but it’s all of our responsibility to make sure it doesn’t die,” Adams said. He said undisclosed private donors will fund the organization.

According to Adams, the project is intended to restore the principle that laws protect and bind everyone, regardless of public office, official authority or influence. Investigators will examine apparent corruption and police violence that has gone unexamined or unpunished across the United States.

The private organization will not possess the subpoena power available to government investigators. Instead, it plans to gather evidence and witness statements before delivering “prosecution-ready case files” to state and local authorities or a future Justice Department.

“I do not think we can break the cycle in this country without criminal accountability,” Adams said. He also anticipates cooperating with congressional investigators when appropriate.

State and local prosecutors have opened investigations into some incidents involving violence by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers, although they have encountered obstacles while trying to obtain evidence. DOJ officials dispute the accusation that potential crimes are being ignored and say every case is evaluated on its merits.

Mark Blumberg will serve as the project’s lead investigator after spending nearly 30 years in the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division investigating and prosecuting official misconduct. For his last 20 years there, Blumberg led DOJ efforts to enforce civil rights laws in elections.

Blumberg also served on the FBI’s Shooting Investigation Review Group and Customs and Border Protection’s National Use of Force Review Board. Organizers say he will direct former federal prosecutors and investigators who collectively possess decades of federal law enforcement experience.

“People need to trust that the game is not rigged against them, that the law applies to everyone,” Blumberg said. “If those in power aren’t held accountable for illegally enriching themselves and using violence against others without cause, that undermines any incentive for the rest of us to follow the law. Our public officials should model the best behavior for our country, not milk it dry for power and riches.”

The project plans to examine officials suspected of using public positions for private benefit. That includes officials who solicit or accept something valuable in exchange for influencing their duties, improperly attempt to influence executive or legislative action, or take official actions affecting their personal financial interests.

News reports during the last 20 months have described questionable conduct by public officials and FBI corruption investigations closed by Trump officials. MS NOW reported that the FBI recorded Tom Homan accepting $50,000 in cash, an allegation Homan denied, and the case did not proceed.

ProPublica reported that the Trump Justice Department declined to continue FBI investigations into potential illegal cash for contracts schemes involving Susan Collins, Lindsay Graham and James Clyburn. Collins and Clyburn denied wrongdoing, while the FBI said it found “nothing implicating Senator Collins” and attacked the allegations as “half-baked misleading claims from former FBI personnel and a convicted felon to spin a predetermined narrative.”

The New York Times also reported that former DOJ official Alina Habba received a $50 million compensation package from the daughter of a Venezuelan billionaire who sought and received a pardon from President Trump. Habba denied wrongdoing, and the DOJ has not indicated whether it will investigate.

The Rule of Law Project will investigate excessive force, improper confinement conditions and unlawful conduct involving Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection. Its investigators also plan to examine federal interference with protected liberties, including voting rights.

After an ICE officer shot and killed Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero in Maine in July, officials said the FBI was not conducting a civil rights investigation. The DOJ also declined to open a civil rights investigation into the January ICE shooting of Renée Good in Minneapolis.

“We only take cases that an independent Justice Department would have pursued in ordinary times,” Blumberg said. “We’re not here to seek retribution or to settle scores. We’re here to ensure the law applies to the powerful the same way it applies to the rest of us.”

Attorney General Todd Blanche said after taking office that he would not promise to operate independently from President Trump and the White House. “No, I’m not going to pledge that. And no attorney general should ever pledge that,” he told NBC in August.

Kenneth Roth, former Executive Director at Human Rights Watch and a board member of the new organization, offered a blunt explanation for its creation. “Since the current U.S. government won’t investigate allegations of ICE violence or official corruption, we will,” Roth said. “To lay the foundation for prosecutions when they become possible.”