A conversation with Rod J. Rosenstein, U.S. Attorney for the District of Maryland

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After being sworn in this week as Maryland’s newest U.S. Attorney, Rod J. Rosenstein sat down with The Daily Record to discuss the job that lies ahead of him. Rosenstein, 40, brings to his new role 15 years experience as a prosecutor, including four as an assistant U.S. attorney in Greenbelt from 1997 to 2001.

Rod J. Rosenstein, U.S. Attorney Photo by Eric Stocklin

What are your priorities for this office?My first priority, of course, is terrorism. It’s critical for federal prosecutors to always be cognizant of our obligation to keep the country safe from terrorism, prosecuting terrorism cases, disrupting terrorist plots, that’s always our first priority.Other important priorities include violent crime; we’re going to continue working through the Project Safe Neighborhoods Initiative with state and local and federal law enforcement officers. [It] is a nationwide initiative which is essentially an umbrella under which the federal government provides funding for state and local law enforcement initiatives working cooperatively with the U.S. attorney’s office. We meet regularly with state and local prosecutors and police agencies. We review firearms cases; we prosecute cases federally if we think that’s appropriate; we work with the states to make sure that all the cases are handled properly. We also work on developing community programs to try to fight violence.Drug crime—it’s always a priority of the federal government to fight drug organizations, organized drug activity; also white collar crime and corruption.Is terrorism a new priority for this office?New since September 11. When I was a prosecutor here, I was an assistant U.S. attorney in Greenbelt, and the courthouse in Greenbelt is only about a mile from where some of the September 11 terrorists trained in Gold’s Gym.But terrorism, until September 11, was not a priority of federal prosecutors; it was done on the other side of the wall, by the FBI, under legal requirements of secrecy. So that’s very much of a change from when I was here four years ago. I started my new job [as principal deputy assistant attorney general in the Justice Department’s tax division] in Washington on September 17, 2001.What do you think makes a successful U.S. Attorney’s Office?One that maintains the trust and confidence of the public, of the judges, of the lawyers that we deal with; one that appropriately represents the interests of the United States, pursues the right cases, pursues them with the appropriate resources. I think we have some extraordinarily talented attorneys and staff and we’re really well situated to do that.What do you mean by the right cases?A federal prosecutor has a fair amount of discretion as to which cases to bring, and it’s really critical that we make those decisions in the right way. Where are the needs? Which crimes ought to be our priorities? Where should we be putting special emphasis; how do we make the decisions who to prosecute? It’s a challenge that the Department of Justice faces and we actually have principles of federal prosecution that lay out a variety of factors for us to consider.The way we use them in this office is that in significant cases, we have an indictment review committee meeting, which means not just the attorney handling the case, but a number of other experienced attorneys sit down and review the evidence, review the proposed indictment and then make a recommendation to the U.S. attorney about whether that case ought to be pursued. It’s a key way that we ensure that we’re bringing the right cases and get input from a lot of experienced people who bring their wisdom and their perspective to bear on the case.Your predecessor faced some criticism about political motivations. … How do you plan to distinguish yourself?I don’t feel any need to distinguish myself. I have my own approach and I intend to do what I think is the right thing to do.What are the specific challenges facing you, immediately and as you move forward?The first thing I’m planning to do is to talk with all our attorneys and staff individually and get their thoughts about what they think we’re doing well, and what they think we could be doing better. I also plan, in my first week or two in office, to talk to each one of our federal judges, because they have a unique perspective on how the office is performing.I’ll also be reaching out to state and local law enforcement officials, and of course meeting with leaders of all the federal law enforcement agencies. I also plan to talk to prominent private attorneys, if they have thoughts about the office that they want to share with me.What about you would you like the Maryland legal community to know?I think what I’d like people to know about me is that I am a career prosecutor. What it means is that I have a lot of experience in making these tough decisions, what priorities to set and which cases to bring. But also I think it’s important for people to know that I also appreciate the perspective from the defense bar, and I think that in exercising our discretion we always need to be sensitive to make sure that we are doing the right thing.What are some of the highlights of your career?Some of the more interesting cases I’ve been involved in include the College Park bank robbery case involving an armed robbery of a state employee’s credit union. Thieves stole over $400,000 and it turned out to be an inside job — one of the tellers, in fact the head teller, was in league with the bank robbers. My work in the tax division has been very fulfilling — we’ve worked over the past four years to increase the number of authorized federal tax prosecutions by 60 percent. Tax enforcement in the 1990s had really dropped off a cliff and we worked to rebuild it. I’m very proud of the work we did there.Of course the Whitewater trial — I was involved in the prosecution of Jim Guy Tucker and Jim and Susan McDougal, which was a very high-profile case.How did you like dealing with the media, in those high-profile cases?I think I was 31 when that case went to trial and I think it’s unlikely that I’ll ever be involved in anything that involves more intense media scrutiny. Among other things, it taught me that we need to do our job and do the right thing and as long as we’re confident that we’re doing the right thing, we need to be somewhat skeptical about being governed by the media.The job of the media is to write about cases and be critical about cases, and the media doesn’t always know everything that we know when we make the decisions about what to do. We need to be confident in our own judgments. I also learned that we as prosecutors need to be aware of and sensitive to public opinion, because part of our job is to reassure the public that the laws are being enforced appropriately and fairly. To the extent that I can help to foster that by being as forthcoming as I can be-about what cases we’re bringing and what decision making process we’re following, I think it’s important for me to do that.You prosecuted public corruption cases [with the Justice Department’s Public Integrity Section]. Was that a passion for you? I don’t find it exhilarating to prosec
ute public corruption. The truth, it’s depressing. We do it when we have to; it’s important for there to be a check on corruption. I’m privileged to have the opportunity occasionally to prosecute cases that involve public corruption where we’re really vindicating the interests of the people in honest government, but I’m never happy to do it.Who are your role models?I’ve been fortunate to have many over the course of my career. One is [Robert S. Mueller III], the head of the FBI. My first job in law enforcement was as an intern in the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Boston, when Muller was the interim U.S. attorney up there. I then came to Washington, and I wound up working in the criminal division of the Justice Department [then headed by Muller]. He was a career prosecutor, someone who was respected for his legal judgment and who was never thought of as being a partisan prosecutor. It’s really critical that people, when they deal with the U.S. attorney’s office, have a right to expect that they are going to be treated without regard to politics. I think it’s important that we do everything we can to reassure people that that’s going to be the case. What do you like to do when you’re not working?I have two daughters, 3 and 5. We go to the swimming pool on the weekends, we ride bikes, and I enjoy spending time with them.