Do you still think [RR] is a black hat?
[February 25, 2019]
[Reconcile] Mr. Rod Rosenstein today gushes with words of praise and confidence for the Inspector General of the Department of Justice, Michael E. Horowitz. He additionally praises and urges confidence in United States Attorney General William Barr.
Selected transcripts from Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein’s Interview with C-SPAN Suzanne Spaulding…
[February 25, 2019]
[The Justice Department and the Rule of Law]
https://www.c-span.org/video/?458148-1/deputy-attorney-general-rosenstein-delivers-speech-rule-law
[57:33 Mr. Rod Rosenstein] "One of the things that gives me great confidence in the Department of Justice are the processes that are in place that is independent of who is running it at any particular time. Specifically, at the Department of Justice we have watch dogs and I think many people are unaware of that. Now for example, there are individual members of Congress who have suggested that they need to be the reviewers of the work of the Department of Justice. But this does not explain that this has already been accounted for. We have within the Department and Independent Inspector General, actually presidential appointed and Senate confirmed whose job it is to conduct independent reviews of the work of the Department of Justice when he determines it is appropriate. And, those are fully independent reviews that result in a detailed report. Sometimes they are made public and sometimes they’re sensitive and not made public. But when the find wrong doing or misconduct, which they do regularly, we take appropriate action. If there is potential criminal wrong doing we will refer that to a US Attorney for possible prosecution. If it is not criminal wrong doing we have the ability to impose administrative sanctions. If somebody’s left the Department but they’ve violated the rules we can refer them to disciplinary action if in the case they are members, for example, of a State Bar Association. We also have in the Department of Justice an Office of Professional Responsibility which has a unique obligation and responsibility to review the compliance of Federal Prosecutors with ethical rules. We have designated ethics officers who evaluate whether or not we have conflicts of interest or reasons why we shouldn’t participate in particular matters. Our law enforcement agencies including the Federal Bureau of Investigation, DEA, ATF and Federal Marshals also have their own Internal Office of Professional Responsibility. So, my confidence in the integrity of law enforcement is not because I assume that nobody will do wrong, but to the contrary, I spent much of my career as a Corruption Prosecutor and I know that people in public office make mistakes and do wrong. My confidence is a product of the processes that exist and the folks that have the responsibilities to review alleged wrong doing and to make independent findings. And, I know because I’ve seen over the course of years of experience that they are aggressive in making those findings. So, I think that it is important, as Suzanne has said, to message that and to reassure people that we do have mechanisms of accountability. We’re not going to jump just because somebody goes on cable TV and says there was wrong doing. But, if our independent professionals in the Office of Professional Responsibility of the Office of the Inspector General make an assessment and they determine either there is predication, or even there is just concern about whether a process needs to be reviewed, they’ve got the manpower to do it. Our Inspector General has about 475 employees. I once said 500 in a Congressional Hearing and he got angry with me, “It’s not that many!”. I rounded up, but the point is that we do have the capacity to do that and we have demonstrated… and when I say we, I mean… he, the Inspector General has demonstrated the ability to do that. And so, I think that that… I know that is an appropriate mechanism to review these things because some of the things that we do just aren’t appropriate to expose at a Congressional hearing. It wouldn’t be in the interest of America to do that kind of thing. But it is in the interest of America to know that somebody is going to be able to do it and fortunately we do have a mechanism that accomplishes that.”
Then towards the end of a long response to a question from Suzanne, Mr. Rod Rosenstein said…
[1:04:58 Mr. Rod Rosenstein] “I think that Attorney General Barr is going to make the right decision. We can trust him to do that. He has a lot of experience with this. You know, Bill Barr when he was Attorney General in his first go-around, in the course of 14 months or so, he appointed a couple special counsels in that era that were not subject to this regulation, obviously. But I think that we can count on him to do the right thing.”