Ethics counsel leaves Congress for USAO

Posted: 7:00 pm Fri, October 15, 2010
By Brendan Kearney
Daily Record Legal Affairs Writer

In an apparent coup for Maryland’s U.S. Attorney, the staff director and chief counsel of the Office of Congressional Ethics announced Friday that he would step down from his post at the controversial independent monitor next month and join Rod J. Rosenstein’s crime-fighting effort.

Leo J. Wise, who was a member of the Enron prosecution team during a stint at the U.S. Department of Justice before agreeing to lead the fledgling OCE, will prosecute white-collar crime as an assistant U.S. attorney in Baltimore, Rosenstein confirmed Friday.

Notwithstanding his high profile, Wise simply applied for his new nonsupervisory job through the normal process over the summer, Rosenstein said. Rosenstein noted that Wise’s career path is not dissimilar from other of Maryland’s federal prosecutors, like Rosenstein, who worked at “Main Justice” before coming to Baltimore.

“For our purposes, his experience in the Justice Department is more relevant than his recent experience in the Congress,” Rosenstein said.

Wise, 33, will leave the OCE at a sensitive time.

The brainchild of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the OCE was formed in 2008 to investigate allegations of lawmaker misconduct before deciding whether to turn them over to the U.S. House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct.

That committee is scheduled to hold an adjudicatory hearing based on one OCE investigation, looking into Rep. Maxine Waters’ actions regarding a bank in which her husband has a stake, on Nov. 29.

However, the committee has rejected many of the OCE’s recommendations for prosecution, and according to published reports, its continued existence could be at stake after next month’s mid-term congressional elections.

“I’m proud of what we accomplished,” Wise said in a statement. “It was an honor to help build the OCE and lead it through its first Congress.”

Wise, who graduated from Johns Hopkins University and lives in Maryland with his wife and son, was unavailable for comment Friday afternoon. But a spokesman said that leaving OCE after two years was always Wise’s plan.

“He always knew he’d be a prosecutor again and wanted to work in a US Atty’s office,” Jon Steinman, the OCE spokesman, wrote in an e-mail. “This [is] a natural move and a happy one for Leo.”

Rosenstein said Wise and another recent hire, both scheduled to start in November after they clear FBI background investigations, will give his office a full complement of 85 assistant U.S. attorneys.