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Just over a thousand people stood outside the federal courthouse in downtown San Diego to protest President Trump firing U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions and replacing him with a known critic of special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation.

Matthew Whitaker, formerly Jeff Session’s chief of staff, will now oversee the probe.

The move, which came just one day after the midterm elections where Democrats took control of Congress, was criticized and raised fears about the future of the investigation.

Lupe Lujan, a resident of Clairemont went to the protest with her husband. She said she was outraged and believed President Trump is trying to influence the investigation. About Trump Lujan also said, “He should be held accountable.”

The ACLU wrote in a statement, “Jeff Sessions was the worst Attorney General in modern American history. Period. But the dismissal of the nation’s top law enforcement official shouldn’t be based on political motives.”

Protests were held all over the country to urge protection of the Mueller investigation. The Hill reported #ProtectMueller trended on Twitter as the protests broke out.

Marely Ramirez is a member of local action group Indivisible Downtown and was one of the speakers at the protest. Speaking to attendees she said, “We need to continue the investigation of Donald Trump and the collusion with Russia. We demand an investigation. The nation demands an investigation.”

Fox News reported more than a dozen U.S. state attorneys general signed a document Thursday calling for Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker to recuse himself from overseeing the Russia investigation.

The Guardian reports Republicans warned Trump not to shut down the investigation. Mitt Romney, who won the race on Tuesday for the U.S. Senate in Utah, tweeted, “It is imperative that the important work of the Justice Department continues, and that the Mueller investigation proceeds to its conclusion unimpeded.”

Democrats are calling on Whitaker to recuse himself from overseeing the investigation. Reuters reported this week House Judiciary Committee Democrats wrote a letter saying the move placed the country “in the throes of a constitutional crisis,” and demanded action from the panel’s Republican chairman, Bob Goodlatte, and called for bipartisan legislation to protect Special Counsel Robert Mueller from any effort to prevent the probe.

Ramirez also said she was glad to see so many people and added, “It was powerful people showed up today. It shows people are fed up and want to do something.”

“We are not about to see one man destroy what the founding fathers in 1776 put together for us, and have one man take it all away. I think he’s absolutely mistaken. It is the power of the people, the goodness in our nation that will take the leadership into making sure not only that there is an investigation, but that the beauty of this country remains intact,” Ramirez also said.