President Trump intends to nominate Jeffrey A. Rosen as Deputy Attorney General of the United States. Attorney General William P. Barr issued the following statement:
Jeffrey Rosen is a distinguished lawyer who has served at the highest levels of government and the private sector,” said Attorney General William P. Barr. “As an attorney, he has more than 35 years’ experience litigating complex matters in state and federal courts across the country, including as a partner at Kirkland & Ellis. He supervised more than 400 attorneys while serving as General Counsel at the Department of Transportation and also served as General Counsel and Senior Policy Advisor at the White House Office of Management and Budget. He currently serves as Deputy Secretary of Transportation, where he leads 50,000 employees. His years of outstanding legal and management experience make him an excellent choice to succeed Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who has served the Department of Justice over many years with dedication and distinction.
A Justice Department official said Monday that Rod Rosenstein planned to step down in mid-March.
The United States Senate today confirmed William P. Barr as attorney general by a vote of 54 to 45. NAFUSA member Senator Doug Jones was one of the three Democrats to support Barr. He was immediately sworn in as the 85th Attorney General during a ceremony in the Oval Office of the White House, where Chief Justice John Roberts administered the oath of office. Barr joins John Crittenden (1841 and 1850-1853) as one of the only two people in U.S. history to serve twice as attorney general.
The Department of Justice advised in a release,
Mr. Barr is rejoining the Department of Justice where he previously served as the 77th Attorney General of the United States from 1991 to 1993 under President George H.W. Bush. Mr. Barr also served as the Deputy Attorney General from 1990 to 1991 and as the Assistant Attorney General of the Office of Legal Counsel from 1989 to 1990. While serving at the Department, Mr. Barr helped create programs and strategies to reduce violent crime and was responsible for establishing new enforcement policies in a number of areas including financial institutions, civil rights, and antitrust merger guidelines. Mr. Barr also led the Department’s response to the Savings & Loan crisis; oversaw the investigation of the Pan Am 103 bombing; directed the successful response to the Talladega prison uprising and hostage taking; and coordinated counter-terrorism activities during the First Gulf War.
Most recently, Mr. Barr served as Of Counsel at Kirkland & Ellis. Before his work at Kirkland & Ellis, he served as Executive Vice President and General Counsel for GTE Corporation from 1994 until 2000 and as Executive Vice President and General Counsel of Verizon from 2000 to 2008.
Mr. Barr served as a law clerk under Judge Malcolm Wilkey of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, and from 1982 to 1983, served on the White House Domestic Policy Staff under President Ronald Reagan. He received his A.B. in government in 1971 and his M.A. in government and Chinese studies in 1973, both from Columbia University. From 1973 to 1977, Mr. Barr served in the Central Intelligence Agency before receiving his J.D. with highest honors from George Washington University Law School in 1977.
Barr is expected to recommend Jeffrey A. Rosen, a longtime colleague at Kinkland & Ellis, to be the deputy attorney general. Rosen is the current deputy secretary of transportation. He held senior positions at the Office of Management and Budget and the Department of Transportation during President George W. Bush’s administration. Rod Rosenstein, the current deputy attorney general is expected to leave within a few days.
PROVIDENCE — Former U.S. Attorney Peter F. Neronha on Tuesday handily defeated his challenger to win the spot as Rhode Island’s top law enforcement officer, the state attorney general.
Neronha, 54, a Democrat, overwhelmed Alan Gordon, of the Compassion Party, to win his first seat in public office. With 99.8 percent of precincts reporting, Neronha had 79.8 percent of the vote.
“It feels good to have an opportunity to serve the public in Rhode Island again,” Neronha said.
Among his first goals will be building a strong team and increasing the office’s outreach in the community, he said.
Neronha led the U.S. Attorney’s office from 2009 through 2017. There, he oversaw a staff of 21 assistant U.S. Attorneys after being nominated to the post by President Barack Obama. He joined the office in 2002 after working six years as state prosecutor.
Throughout his tenure as U.S. Attorney, the office prosecuted a string of public corruption probes that took down former Democratic House Speaker Gordon Fox, three North Providence councilmen, former Central Falls Mayor Charles Moreau and onetime House Finance Committee Chairman Raymond E. Gallison Jr.
A native Rhode Islander, Neronha, of Jamestown, said he planned to continue focus on public corruption in the Ocean State.
He is married to Shelly Neronha, a doctor in southern Rhode Island. The couple has two sons.
NAFUSA members will find interesting the publication of the Oxford University Press book, coauthored by Brett Curry, Professor of Political Science at Georgia Southern University, and Banks Miller, Associate Professor of Political Science & Public Policy at the University of Texas at Dallas, “U.S. Attorneys, Political Control, and Career Ambition.” Here is the link to the book’s page at Oxford UP: https://global.oup.com/academic/product/us-attorneys-political-control-and-career-ambition-9780190928247?cc=us&lang=en&#
The first book-length treatment of USAs in more than 40 years, this study is accessible, and discusses aspects of the history surrounding the USA position while also offering an empirical investigation of specific issue areas spanning the Reagan-Obama presidencies. It incorporates anecdotes involving more than 50 former USAs throughout the book; Professor (and former AUSA) Dan Richman of Columbia Law School has written an endorsement on the book’s cover.
The last scholarly book devoted to U.S. Attorneys was “Counsel for the United States,” by James Eisenstein.
NAFUSA member William “Bill” Killian (ED Tennessee 2010-2015), has authored a new book, “Won’t Back Down: The Journey from Small Town Tennessee to Presidentially Appointed United States Attorney.” In a compilation of legal anecdotes, Bill shares the experiences, cases, and instances of injustice that defined his career as a trial lawyer and his path to becoming a United States Attorney.
Prior to his work as U.S. Attorney, Killian was a sole practitioner in his law firm in Jasper, Tenn., was city attorney for the city of Monteagle, Tenn. for 21 years and was the assistant district attorney for the Twelfth Judicial District in Tennessee. Throughout his professional career, Killian has held various teaching positions with colleges and universities in east Tennessee and the University of Tennessee College of Law. He served in the United States Army and the Tennessee National Guard from December 1970 to January 1973.
Killian earned his law degree from the University of Tennessee School of Law in 1973 after completing his B.S. from the University of Tennessee at Knoxville. He is a former member of the Tennessee Bar Association House of Delegates and the Board of Directors for the American Red Cross Chattanooga Chapter.
The book can also be accessed through the following link:
NAFUSA life member Chuck Rosenberg (ED Virginia 2006-2008, Texas 2005-2006) and the former Acting Director of DEA), will return to present the 2019 ethics lecture at the annual NAFUSA conference in San Francisco, September 25-27. Chuck organized last year’s excellent panel on the opioid crisis. This fall, Chuck will speak on “The Korematsu Story–The Duty of Candor to The Court. Registration for the September conference is expected to begin in June.
Here is his preview:
In early 1942, following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, FDR issued Executive Order 9066, enabling west coast military commanders to set up curfews and exclusion zones, ostensibly to protect the US against sabotage by Japanese Americans. More than 110,000 Japanese Americans on the west coast were relocated to internment camps, primarily in the mountain west. However, two reports – one commissioned by the State Department and one conducted by the Naval Office of Intelligence – showed that there actually was not a significant threat from Japanese Americans living on the west coast. Indeed, for the most part, those reports showed quite the opposite and, to the extent there was a threat from Japanese Americans, it was confined to a small group of individuals largely known to the FBI and national security officials, many of whom were already under surveillance or in custody. Further, at least two DOJ attorneys knew about the Munson and Ringle reports and believed – and put it in writing – that withholding the findings from those reports from the Supreme Court in connection with the litigation of the Hirabayashi (curfew) and Korematsu (exclusion) cases amounted to a suppression of evidence. Those DOJ attorneys lost an internal debate to the Solicitor General, who concealed the information from the Court and misled it in oral argument in response to a direct question about the views of the USG on the threat posed by Japanese Americans. About seven decades later, the SG’s office (led, at the time, by Neal Katyal) confessed error, acknowledging that the reports had been suppressed and that providing truthful information to the Court was not only required but might have affected the outcome.
NAFUSA President Terry Flynn announced that FBI Director and NAFUSA life member Chris Wray will be the keynote speaker at the 2019 NAFUSA Annual Conference. The meeting will be held at the Westin St Francis in San Francisco, on September 25-27. Director Wray will speak at the closing dinner on Friday, September 27. Registration will begin in June.
Chris Wray is serving as the eighth and current Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation since 2017. From 2003 to 2005 he served as the Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Criminal Division in the George W. Bush Administration. From 2005 until 2017, Wray was a litigation partner at King & Spalding. He earned his law degree from Yale Law School, where he was the Executive Director of the Yale Law Journal. After law school, he clerked for Judge J. Michael Luttig of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. He joined the Justice Department in 1997 as an Assistant United States Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia. In 2001, he moved to Main Justice as the Associate Deputy Attorney General and Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General.
Click here to read the remarks of NAFUSA’s last keynote speaker, Senator Doug Jones in Nashville in 2018: Doug Jones NAFUSA remarks 2018. NAFUSA member and former board member and officer, Doug would have been NAFUSA’s president in 2018 if he had not stepped down to run for the Senate. His remarks stressed the importance of reaching across the aisle and bi-partisanship.
NAFUSA Immediate Past President Hal Hardin received two honors in his home state of Tennessee.
On November 7, 2018, at the Tennessee Supreme Court Historical Society’s annual banquet in Memphis, Tennessee, Hal was presented a leadership plaque for his service as past president of the society.
On December 5, 2018, at the National Bar Association’s Annual Convention in Nashville, Tennessee, Hal was presented with the John C. Tune Public Service Award, an accolade given to a member who “makes outstanding contributions to the greater Nashville area community while distinguishing themselves as practicing attorneys.” The award is the highest award which can be bestowed upon a member by the Bar.
Duquesne University Law School is searching for a new Dean to succeed Dean Maureen Lally- Green who is retiring. The law school is a major force in Pennsylvania. There are more Duquesne Law graduates on the state and federal bench in Pennsylvania than graduates from any other law school. The Search Committee is not confining its search to persons from academia. The current Dean spent 10 years as a judge on the state intermediate appellate court before becoming the Dean. Persons interested should contact Judge Jeffrey A. Deller, at judgedellerchambers@pawb.uscourts.gov
PROVIDENCE — Former U.S. Attorney Peter F. Neronha on Tuesday handily defeated his challenger to win the spot as Rhode Island’s top law enforcement officer, the state attorney general.
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