Rosenstein Built a Policy Legacy, One Tweak at a Time: Kathleen Hamann Quoted in Law360

Although many will remember outgoing Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein for his role overseeing Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, the 27-year DOJ veteran spoke often about “not blindly accepting past practices.”

Under his watch, Rosenstein “led an effort to revamp the Justice Manual [formerly the U.S. Attorneys’ Manual], and to round up all applicable policies in one place.”

One section of the manual relates to assisting foreign law enforcement, and the need to first receive “clearance from the DOJ’s Office of International Affairs (OIA)” before assisting overseas counterparts, unless an investigation is opened based on information that a foreign counterpart has previously shared. In that case, DOJ attorneys can share that information with foreign prosecutors without OIA clearance.

Pierce Atwood litigation partner Kathleen Hamann, a former FCPA prosecutor who also spent ten years at the State Department, said that this change likely reflects the fact that “prosecutors now tend to have more personal communication with their foreign counterparts.”

Another update to the manual informs prosecutors that they no longer need to seek OIA clearance for a subpoena when a company has already agreed to hand something over. Hamann notes that this ought to make for a “quicker, smoother process when companies want to cooperate but need to be subpoenaed to satisfy other requirements such as privacy laws.” She notes, “It shows a fair amount of thought went into this and that they were trying to be practical about it.”

The complete article by Jody Godoy appeared in the March 29, 2019 edition of Law360.