Lawyer at helm of Russian probe has relevant experience
New deputy attorney general played key role in 1990s investigation of the Clintons
WASHINGTON— As a young federal prosecutor in the 1990s, Rod J. Rosenstein played a key role in the highly charged independent investigation of president Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton, over their investments in a failed real estate company known as Whitewater.
Rosenstein is now poised to take over another sensitive investigation: the FBI counter-intelligence inquiry into whether U.S. President Donald Trump’s current or former aides colluded with Russian intelligence to interfere with last year’s election.
The Senate is expected to confirm Rosenstein as deputy attorney general, the No. 2 position in the Justice Department Monday. Rosenstein will decide whether to file criminal charges, to drop the case entirely or to hand it off to an independent counsel.
Rosenstein, who has served under Republican and Democratic presidents, will be responsible because Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused himself from the Russia investigation after news reports revealed that during his Senate confirmation hearing, he failed to disclose his own meetings with a Russian diplomat last year.
In all, Rosenstein has spent 27 years at the Department of Justice, the last 12 as U.S attorney for the District of Maryland. He rose steadily through the ranks with a reputation as a hard-edged career prosecutor uninterested in politics. Rosenstein’s by-the-numbers work stood out in the highly politicized, widely criticized Whitewater investigation, colleagues recall.
“He’s a very thoughtful guy — and I wouldn’t say that about everybody at the independent counsel’s office,” said Bruce Udolf, now a defence lawyer in Miami. “He’s a solid guy and can be relied on to do the right thing, no matter what the politics.”
During his contentious Senate confirmation hearing on March 7, Rosenstein would not say whether he would appoint a special prosecutor for the Russian investigation, as some Democrats demanded.
But he expressed confidence that the Justice Department could handle even the most politically fraught case without compromising its independence. He said he wouldn’t have qualms about questioning Sessions or even Trump, if the investigation led to them.
“I’ve done that before,” said Rosenstein, who was part of the team that questioned president Bill Clinton at in the Whitewater case.
Rosenstein told lawmakers he had “no reason to doubt” the conclusion of the 17 U.S. intelligence agencies that Russia’s government sought to influence the U.S. presidential race through cyber-hacks of Democratic Party leaders and other operations.
As deputy attorney general, Rosenstein will oversee day-to-day operations at the Justice Department and help carry out the conservative shift in legal priorities that Trump and Sessions have promised. Rosenstein grew up near Philadelphia and attended the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard Law School. He and his wife have two teenage daughters.
After law school, he served as a law clerk to Judge Douglas Ginsburg of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. In 1990, he joined the Justice Department. He soon joined the agency’s top levels, working as a counsel for Deputy Attorney General Philip Heymann in Clinton’s first term.
In 1995, he joined the independent counsel investigation looking into real estate investments in Arkansas by the Clintons and several of their associates. He was part of the trial team that won convictions against Arkansas Gov. Jim Guy Tucker and two others. The Clintons were never charged. Rosenstein later led an investigation into whether the Clinton administration had improperly obtained FBI background reports, and questioned Hillary Clinton at the White House. No one was charged in that case.
After working several years as a federal prosecutor in Maryland, Rosenstein ran the Justice Department’s tax division. In May 2005, president George W. Bush nominated him to be U.S. attorney in Maryland.
When he arrived in Baltimore, the office was just beginning Project Exile, a program his predecessor planned to attack violent crime. In the first year, it looked like a flop because the violent crime rate didn’t budge, said Steve Levin, one of Rosenstein’s top deputies at the time.
“It would have been very easy for Rod to end the program and blame it on a predecessor and say, ‘Let’s try something else,’ ” Levin said. “He was willing to take any hits he was getting. He wasn’t concerned about himself. He was concerned with the office.”
In 2007, Bush nominated Rosenstein to a seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit. But the Democratic-controlled Senate let the nomination lapse. Obama then reappointed him to the U.S. attorney’s job.
Rosenstein’s office chose not to file charges in the case of Freddy Gray, whose death from injuries in police custody sparked riots in Baltimore in 2015. But he filed racketeering charges last month against seven Baltimore police officers in another case.
“He’s seen it all, so nothing surprises him,” said Baltimore Police Commissioner Kevin Davis, who has watched Rosenstein’s work closely over the years. He said he was impressed with Rosenstein’s collegiality and willingness to hash out strategy on complex investigations.
“When you get to that level of leadership, you know that every day can be your last day on the job,” Davis said. “He’ll be able to sleep eight hours a night. He’s going to make decisions in the right interests of justice.”