With Barr’s December 23 departure approaching, Rosen will head the Justice Department for President Donald Trump’s last month, placing the former corporate lawyer in the midst of what could be a political dust storm created by a president. of lame ducks that he still refuses to grant and has made it clear that he wants his opponents to be prosecuted or even imprisoned.
An assistant attorney general always occupies a position after the department’s highest nominee, but Rosen’s public profile has been even lower than usual. It has largely remained aloof from Barr’s most controversial moments, such as when the attorney general overturned career prosecutors in the criminal proceedings of Trump associates Michael Flynn and Roger Stone.
But Rosen has stepped up in major corporate litigation, including a central role vis-à-vis opioid manufacturers and the tech community.
According to a Justice Department official who knows him, Rosen does not like making the kind of decisions that would put him at the center of political storms. And it is not yet known whether he will line up with Trump or step back on behalf of a department where appointed politicians leave quietly and career staff prepare for the next administration.
“He’s not the type who likes to make decisions,” the official said. “Barr is all fire and fury. Rosen does things for the right reasons.”
“Rosen is calm but strong,” another source who knew him told CNN.
The Justice Department made no comment on how Rosen assumed the position of acting attorney general.
Barr’s early departure places Rosen, who had also served in Trump’s Department of Transportation as deputy secretary and general counsel in agencies during the George W. Bush administration, in the unusual position of leading the department as an interim official. during the last month of presidency.
He may be able to remain in the job until the election of Attorney General Joe Biden is confirmed, as has happened in previous changes in the administration at the request of incoming administrations.
Attorneys General Loretta Lynch and Michael Mukasey confirmed by the previous Senate remained in the last days in charge of Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush, respectively, before handing over the department to their deputy delegates (those who now hold Rosen’s position) until, for example, the candidate for the next administration could be confirmed.
A backstage litigant
Rosen’s deliberative approach comes from his decades of private practice managing complex litigation for companies. In Justice, Barr treated Rosen more like his attorney, with the attorney general remaining involved in times of most attention for the department instead of setting aside for Rosen to only manage it, according to a Department of State official. Justice.
“Barr has kept the stage all the time. So we don’t know the role Rosen played in so many key decisions,” said Julie Rodin Zebrak, a Democratic political consultant who previously spent two decades in the Justice Department. and worked as a deputy director of a former deputy attorney general. “We don’t really know a ton of it.”
Rosen remains a mystery even to lawyers who have worked in the main Justice building, according to current and former department officials who spoke to CNN.
Documents from the Department of Internal Justice, released by the department in recent months under the Freedom of Information Act, give little indication of Rosen’s backstage involvement in controversial issues. For example, he was informed of the department’s consequences related to Stone’s sentence, but it is unclear what involvement he had in Barr’s election to overturn prosecutors in the case.
Rosen’s lack of tax experience was a problem when he first took on the role of MP, but took over the direction of the Justice Department’s main actions, including the antitrust lawsuit against Google and the criminal claims agreement. with OxyContin manufacturer Purdue Pharma.
According to two former Justice Department officials, the effort to work out a case against Google, which is ongoing, focused on Rosen’s office. When the lawsuit was announced in October, Rosen told reporters that “there’s nothing off the table” when it came to the consequences Google could have.
During his confirmation in the Senate of the position of Deputy Attorney General, Rosen pledged to back down against any undue influence he might have. A senator asked Rosen in writing how he would respond if the president asked him to do anything that was illegal. Rosen noted first that he believed that “this hypothetical scenario is unlikely to occur,” and then wrote, “If I were directed, however, to do something illegal, I would resign rather than comply with an illegal order. “.
At the Senate confirmation hearing in April 2019, he said, “If the right answer is to say no to someone, I will say no.”
What can Rosen find in the last few weeks of Trump
Rosen may face political pressure similar to those imposed on Barr and Trump’s first attorney general, Jeff Sessions, as the president continues to press publicly for the indulgence of his supporters accused of crimes, for investigations into election fraud that may raise doubts about the reality of the election and for consequences for researchers who tracked Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election.
Barr’s departure comes in an interview with The Associated Press that infuriated Trump, where Barr testified that the Justice Department had found no evidence of widespread voter fraud and reported that the attorney general had maintained the investigation. of Hunter Biden silently until after the election.
The issue of election fraud reappeared in Barr’s resignation letter Monday, and the attorney general said he had updated Trump that day on a Justice Department election fraud review “and how these allegations will continue to be prosecuted.” The department has not provided further details on what this review may entail, and state and federal judges have repeatedly rejected as evidence Trump’s claims that there have been widespread election frauds this year.
The president may also push the Justice Department to investigate Hunter Biden, the president-elect’s second son, and the findings of Special Counsel John Durham, who was manually chosen by Barr to investigate the FBI’s management of the first investigation. Russia. and has been used by Republicans to question findings about the Trump campaign’s responsiveness to Russian interference in 2016.
Capitol Hill Republicans have already asked for special advice on Hunter Biden. The appointment of one would position the criminal investigation with a prosecutor specifically assigned to lead an investigation, placing it halfway through and protected in some aspects of the next president’s administration.
The Delaware Federal Prosecutor’s Office is already working with IRS and FBI investigators to issue subpoenas and obtain Hunter Biden-related interviews on tax issues and its trade relations with China, CNN reported.
“There will be all this pressure” on Rosen in the last few days, a Justice Department official said.
This story has been updated to take into account that the Department of Justice declined to comment.
CNN’s Christina Carrega contributed to this report.