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On Thursday, hundreds of senior defense lawyers and the Justice Department gathered in the MJ's large cavernous hall, which was set aside for the best opportunities. Only standing places remained, and an overflowing crowd gathered on the balcony overlooking the ground floor.
A host of minor legal celebrities – from the former White House legal adviser, Don McGahn – to Mueller, Mueller investigator, Michael Dreeben – had come together to refer the sub- Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. His last day at the Department of Justice is Saturday, and his posting, like his tenure with the DOJ, has been much more dramatic than most Assistant Attorneys General. And he brought together a mix of eclectic civil servants that reflected his colorful – and controversial – era as the main DOJ leader: White House and loyalist Kellyanne Conway was present; Senator Richard Burr, who has just assigned the son of the president.
They all gathered under the famous and imposing art-deco statues of the spirits of justice. A bare-breasted statue and former Attorney General John Ashcroft hid it behind a curtain during his stay (he said it was to create a better background for television cameras). For the departure of Rosenstein, Mr. and Mrs. Justice remained uncovered, in all their glory of aluminum.
Attorney General Bill Barr took the opportunity to joke a bit about the recent decision of the House Judiciary Committee to condemn him in defiance of Congress.
"At the time, the deputy minister position was very different," said Barr, referring to the year 1990, when Rosenstein had started working at the department. "But I will tell you now, the work of Attorney General is very different."
"You like records," he continued. "It must be a record for the Attorney General being proposed for contempt not later than one hundred days after taking office."
There were some laughs.
The contempt cases in Barr are the latest installment in the saga of Special Advisor Robert Mueller's investigation into Russia's interference in the 2016 election. Rosenstein has entrusted this work to Mueller and has survived critics of Congressional Republicans, Fox News hosts, and the President himself. But the end of the investigation, which revealed no evidence that Americans helped the Kremlin spread propaganda and hack Trump's political enemies, is not the end of the story. With the apparent approval of Rosenstein, Barr chose to decide for himself whether Trump had committed a crime while trying to prevent the investigation. Barr also chose not to submit to Congress the redacted portions of Mueller's final report. The Speaker of the Judiciary of the House, Jerry Nadler, assigned the full report, Barr challenged the summons, and Nadler's committee decided to condemn him in contempt.
Rosenstein therefore leaves the department in the midst of a congressional brawl. The speakers present at his departure ceremony found it humorous that he had led the Department through, but not out of a state of war.
Barr was not the only laughing line of the afternoon. Maryland's US lawyer Robert Hur, Rosenstein's former deputy, alluded to the period of tension in his office when he gave the opening speech at the event.
"And because our work is so serious, thank goodness we, as well as the DAG [deputy attorney general], had a very good sense of humor, "Hur said. "You are going through difficult times when you say," You can not do this shuff-up ". You can laugh or cry. And I remember a lot of laughs every day, and I certainly do not remember those tears. "
The crowd applauded.
"To repeat a sentence of Tom Hanks in" A league apart ", no one cries in the ODAG [Office of the Deputy Attorney General]. "
Later in the program, former Attorney General Jeff Sessions spoke in front of a room filled with lawyers and politicians who had been watching with shaken eyes when Trump had turned his time into a serial drama, spending more time on the air. a year to try to humiliate him without letting himself go. the probe of Russia. Sessions, like Hur, made jokes.
"When we arrived, I had no doubt that there would be a lot of controversy during my term," he said.
"But in truth, I must say that our race exceeded my expectations," he added. "So, when I challenged, using the recent words of Attorney General Barr, the baby fell to Rod's hands. The so-called collusion investigation became his and it was not a trivial matter. There was a continuous tumult. Decisions had to be made, and those decisions belonged to him. "
The sessions praised Rosenstein's decisions.
"He stayed the course during some of the most difficult periods in the history of the department," he said. "The investigation was under way on his arrival, but he did not start. And once started, in my opinion over the years, these things become unstoppable. They must work their will. "
"Rod, you did your homework as he came upon you," he continued. "You did not ask it, it's safe, you started the process, you followed the regulations, the system worked as it should, what can one more official do?
The sessions then evoked his tumultuous journey as Attorney General.
"We had a lot of wonderful moments, but things were often a little abnormal," he continued. "I remember a dinner at a nearby restaurant, [Solicitor General] Christmas Francisco and Rod and me, one night. The paparazzi caught us and even this dinner could mean some sort of message, it seems.
When Rosenstein spoke, he praised the two attorneys general under his command.
"We stayed the course and we did what we wanted to do," he said. "There are many people in this room who have stood by my side to defend the walls of justice. When we are right, we continue to move forward. Our confidence is not naive. This stems from an appreciation of the history and traditions of this great institution. "
He also made comments that resembled a vague reference to former FBI director James Comey, whom he had criticized the public statements on the Clinton e-mail inquiry.
"Government officials sometimes face pressure to compromise the principles, perhaps even to exchange virtue for the appearance of virtue," he said. "But we should be careful whenever unpleasant circumstances tempt us to ignore timeless principles. It is very important to follow the rules when the issues are the most important. Keeping up with traditions is usually the best solution – not always, but generally. After all, that's why they have become traditions. "
Comey has spent her time in the public eye to demonstrate a remarkable frankness about her opinions on ethics, philosophy and thorny moral issues. But in this commentary, Rosenstein seemed strongly convinced that Comey had complicated things too much – using a noble philosophical approach to solving difficult questions when simply consulting the rule book would have been enough.
Comey drew Rosenstein's reproach for commenting in detail on Clinton's handling of a private messaging server a few months before the 2016 presidential election. These comments – a radical break in the Justice Department's policy banning disclosure of detrimental information to persons not accused of crimes – harmed the Clinton campaign and strengthened Trump.
A few months after being sworn in as Deputy Attorney General, Rosenstein wrote a memo detailing his criticisms of Comey's behavior. Shortly after receiving it, Trump fired Comey, who was then overseeing the investigation into Russia's interference in the 2016 elections. The White House assistants invoked the memo of Rosenstein to justify the dismissal, but Rosenstein later told Congress that he did not want to use them that way.
After Tromp's dismissal of Comey, Rosenstein instructed Mueller to supervise the investigation, provoking the president's fury and the acceleration of the investigation that dominated his first year and a half.
But Rosenstein never hesitated on the contents of his note on Comey. And his farewell ceremony took place on a date he probably remembered: the two years of his dismissal.
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