DOJ Number Three Lawyer Leaves Post to Work For Walmart

and on Bloomberg dot com slash podcasts. It's not usually in the headlines when an Associate Attorney General resigns, but these days, when the supervision of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation is the subject of congressional hearings, the importance of the departure of the third highest official in the Justice Department is clear. Rachel Brand is stepping down after less than nine months in the job. She'll be joining walmart

as executive vice president of Global Governance. Joining me is Bradley Moss, a partner at Mark Sade brad Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenston is the only government official with the legal authority to directly fire Mueller. Next in line after him was Rachel Brand, which is why so many of us have come to know her by name. Who is

next in line after Rachel Brand? Absolutely so. The next person is right now the Solicitor General um And that's only because the line of secession technically would go to the U. S Attorney for Inficiation North Carolina, but that individual has not been confirmed by the Senate yet, so due to that technicality, the Solicitor General is currently next online.

If Mr Rosen sign were fired or dismissed for any reason, now, um, if the President wanted to put someone in that position permanently, would there have to be confirmation by the Senate for the spot that Miss brand left, I would require that

would require Senate confirmation. And it goes without saying, just as we dealt within Watergate, and just as we dealt with when Mr Rosenstein and others were putting their current positions, that Senators would absolutely ask about the context of the Special Council investigation and the extent to which these individual rules would be willing to uh counter an illegal order or an an unethical order to fire the Special Council.

Democrats like Congressman Adam Schiff have been reading signals from the White House in recent weeks that Rosenstein is on the line he may be fired, ostensibly because of his part in signing off on the re reauthorization of the surveillance of Carter Page. As outlined in that Republican memo. Does the President need a reason to fire Rosenstein? That? Technically speaking, no, he is a political appointee. The President can fire Mr. Rosenstein just like any other political pointee

at any time he wants, without cause. They serve at the pleasure of the President. But there would be an obvious political ramification and backlash if he were to take such an action, especially if he did it in the context of subsequently trying to fire the Special Counsel, would without question have political ramifications, which I don't think the President quite wants to deal with, specially leading up to the mid terms. Let's try to put ourselves in Rachel

Brand's position. She's only been there nine months. Excuse me. NBC is reporting that she quit partially over fear that she might be asked to oversee the rush of probe. That's according to multiple sources close to her. That's NBC News just coming out with that about an hour ago. Does that seem more likely than that she's leaving for a great job. Yeah, I don't think anybody really believes with all sincerity that she simply left because it was

a job that she couldn't pass up. There were obviously

other factors, other considerations. She clearly was not comfortable with how the department was being run, the lack of proper staffing, uh, the amitistation said, problems getting enough people nominated, let alone a pointed and confirmed But also yeah, I mean, she had to be worried that if Rosenstein was fired, that she'd be placed in the position of having to oversee and possibly be ordered to dismiss us their mull And I don't think that's really a position she wanted to

find herself in. She's a lifelong government lawyer. I don't think she reviewed herself as being that kind of player, and she didn't really want to tie her reputation to that. She was a rising star in the conservative legal world. She's worked for both Republican presidents and Democratic presidents, and it seems as if she was working her way up, and now she's sort of gone off into the private sector, perhaps ahead of time. Yeah, I certainly expect to see

I mean, she's still young. I certainly expect to see her back in government service in the future. I think she'll make some money right now for a little while with Walmart and anyone else the private sector, But come another administration, whether it be Republican or demock Democrat, but probably Republican. I could see her being appointed to a position such as deputy Attorney General. She'll be back, brad. Um. Let's talk a little bit about the pressures that the

Justice Department officials are under. For example Rod Rosenstein, everywhere he goes in in Congress wherever there are cameras following him continually. Um. And the pressure of the other people in the in the Justice Department with this hanging over their head, this smaller investigation. Yeah, the Justice Department to an extent, is used to the cuts contain Uh. They are often under the microscope and a lot of the

investigation prostitutions they would bring. What's different here is the extent to one obviously implicates possibly the president or senior advisors, but also the extent to which the President, so routinely and so in such an inflammatory manner, will discuss it and talk about They are official effectively doing their job and trying to run a proper investigation while having their boss publicly criticized them for what they're doing in and

of itself. And that can't be easy. Whether you're a civil servant or a political appointee that certainly is not a comfortable work environment which to operate while you're trying to simply do your job as you understand it and as you've been taking to do so. It's put the

department in a bit of an unusual buying here. UM. I'm not surprised that there's the problem staffing, especially with the political point, because I don't think a lot of credible and qualified individuals want to tie their name to this, not knowing what the president will ultimately do at the

end of the day. About a minute here, but it seems as if it might be because of all the publicity about the possibility of firing Rod Rosenstein, much like the publicity of firing Rex Tillerson and Jeff Sessions, that it might be that the President is less likely to fire him at this point. I think I think that's

a valid, valid, and more very likely position. At at this point, I don't think he really wants to deal with not only the ramifications of how it would damage him in the public relations in the in the PR sense, but the idea of who would take that spot, who have any real credibility qualification would be willing to step into that spot at that point, knowing everything that's going on and wanting to go to the cluelin process of getting confirmed, and then still know at the end of

the day that your boss will possibly chastise you on Twitter and you can't respond. So I think you have to take that into consideration. I think the President's probably helped back, not because I really want peop, because he's got no other choice. Thanks so much as always for being here. That's Brad Moss. He's a partner at Mark Say.

The saga of the dueling memos continues. It's been ten days since President Trump declassified and allowed the release of Republican House intelligence memo that alleged bias and misconduct by the FBI and Justice Department in their surveillance of former

Trump campaign associate car to Page. House Democrats have been trying to have their own memo that counters Republican allegations released to the public, but on Friday, the White House formerly notified them that President Trump was unable to declassify the Democratic memo because it contained quote numerous properly classified and sensitive passages. During an interview with CBS has faced

the Nation. Democratic Congressman Adam Shift the rank key member of the House Committee said the FBI had already reviewed their document and criticized the president's refusal to release it. The hypocrisy of this just kind of reaches out and grabs you by the throat. Here, the Republicans write a memo which the FBI quite accurately describes as misleading and omitting material facts. The Department of Justice says it would be extraordinarily reckless to release this. Uh and what does

the president do? He says, I'm going to release it before I even read it, how to present I'm gonna release it. This is a president who puts his own personal interest above the national security interests of the country. My guest is Jimmy Garule, professor at Notre Dame Law School. Jimmy Trump overroad Justice Department objections when he permitted the release of the Republican memo without redactions now in decline

to classify the Democratic memo. There was, along with the letter from the White House Council, letter signed by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and FBI Director Ray laying out portions it considers too sensitive to make public. So what's your reaction to the different treatment of the two memos, Is there a basis for it? Well, they're certainly being

treated differently. And with respect to the noon As Memo, the both the FBI and d O J the Department of Justice had concerns that the noon As Memo would would disclose classified information. And despite those objections and very strong objections by those two departments, the President disclosed the

noon As Memo. Nonetheless, now with respect to the what I referred to as the Shift Memo, the presidents doesn't appear to be or now appears to be very concerned about about national security information and is refusing to disclose it based upon those grounds. And so there's a little bit of hypocrisy here with respect to the treatment of the noon As Memo and the treatment of the of

the Shift Memo. So, but the Democrats have said that they're willing to work with the FBI and the Justice Department. Is that the way to go they should work with

them and have certain parts redacted. Well, well, certainly, I mean, if there are some legitimate concerns that the Shift Memo would disclose classified information, then it's certainly incumbent upon Adam Shift to meet with both of those agencies to determine what the specific problems are and try to address those with respect to redaction or even if necessary, deletion of certain portions. But it's important that the Democratic Memo come

out in pursuit of transparency and fairness. So now it's been ten days since President Trump declassified the news memo. What has the impact been? Well, I think ultimately, I think there are many that would conclude that that it's been a flop. The President maintained after the noon Ast Memo was released that it it to only vindicated him with respect to both the Russia investigation and claims of obstruction of justice, and certainly it has not had had

that effect at all. In fact, I would argue that the noon As Memo actually supports the legitimacy of the Russia investigation and the credibility of the Russia investigation, because it establishes that carter Page was on the radar screen of the FBI as early as two thousand thirteen, well before the Trump campaign, and the face of warrant wasn't issued with respect to uh carter Page until I think October of two thousand and sixteen, after he had left

the Trump campaign, so he had been on the radar screen uh by the FBI for a number of years with respect to concerns that he was possibly a foreign agent of the Kremlin. Is it a problem, Jimmy that most people are not reading the full memo or they would see that it's about Carter page and doesn't mention Trump. But most people are getting their news from other people's interpretations of it, so they're not looking at the facts. No,

that's a problem, There's no question about it. Because again, if you're just taking on face value claims the President Trump is making, or or claims that are being advanced arguments are being advanced by by the republic by the Republican, you're obviously going to get a very very slantid view

of the evidence. And so again this underscores the importance of the of the Shift Memo being disclosed, because I think it's clear that that what's contained in that memo is going to serve as a strong counterpoint and counter argument to to the noon As Memo. So the Shift Memo is ten pages, so perhaps less people will even read that memo. But the argument has been made by by some, even Democrats, that that it would be better

to just have dropped this, let it alone. Whatever damage was done was done, and just move on and not

make this an issue a continuing issue. Right, Well, I think that they're certainly merit to that because with respect of the noon As memo, what it One of the things that it revealed, of course, was the existence of this face A want, this electronic surveillance national security want on carter page, and those are those are supposed to be kept secret because of concerns that they're going to tip off the target and they may disclose sources and

methods of collecting national security information. And so if there is this kind of continuing battle between the memos and and face A one, information is disclosed. In the end, this is going to damage and undermine national security. That's going to be the that's going to be the injury, the ultimate damage with respect to this type of activity.

So it's got to stop. But unfortunately we're hearing from represent n if he has more memos that he's flating on disclosing in the near future, and so this battle of the memos can continue, uh for the next several months. Do you believe that the FBI has really taken a hit as far as the American people are concerned at

the integrity of the FBI. Well, at least that if you follow and if you believe certain polls that have come out recently, there are a substantial, substantial percentage of Republicans that believe that the invested the Russia investigation, of course, which is being conducted by the FBI, is not being conducted in an affair and honest way. And so clearly this this campaign to to undermine the credibility and the integrity of the FBI is resonating at least with a

substantial proportion of portion percentage of Republicans. And again that's very that's a real tragedy here that this premier federal law enforcement agency is taking the kind of hit regarding its integrity that it has taken over the last several months. Well, thanks as always for being here, Jimmy, that's Professor Jimmy Garola of Notre Dame Law School. Thanks for listening to

the Bloomberg Law Podcast. You can subscribe and listen to the show on Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud, and on Bloomberg dot com slash podcast. I'm June Brosso. This is Bloomberg yea