{"id":50639,"date":"2021-02-23T16:59:31","date_gmt":"2021-02-23T16:59:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/?p=346228"},"modified":"2021-02-23T16:59:31","modified_gmt":"2021-02-23T16:59:31","slug":"corporate-lawyers-line-up-for-justice-department-top-slots","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2021\/02\/23\/corporate-lawyers-line-up-for-justice-department-top-slots\/","title":{"rendered":"Corporate Lawyers Line Up for Justice Department Top Slots"},"content":{"rendered":"
The first day<\/u> of Senate Judiciary Committee hearings for Merrick Garland, President Joe Biden\u2019s appointee for attorney general, was surprisingly uneventful. Garland faced little meaningful pushback from Republicans while assuring them repeatedly that he would not bring anything even resembling political motivation into the Department of Justice. “I would not have taken this job if I thought that politics would have any influence over prosecutions and investigations,\u201d he said. With support from at least Sens.\u00a0John Cornyn and Chuck Grassley<\/a> on the Republican side, Garland is likely to sail through to confirmation.<\/p>\n But while Garland was asked about investigating Hunter Biden, the president’s son, he was barely asked about the burgeoning ranks of corporate lawyers who are joining or expected to be joining the Justice Department. In both the transition team and early hires, the Biden Department of Justice, with Garland as its presumptive lead, looks to be drawing extensively on the ranks of Big Law representatives to staff its most powerful and important posts.<\/p>\n Several of the lawyers up for major positions at\u00a0the Justice Department have personal connections to Garland going back decades, including when he worked in the agency during the Clinton administration. In the intervening years when Garland became a federal judge, these colleagues went to work for Big Tech and other corporate clients. Now Garland seems content to bring them back into the fold regardless of their records. Though the Biden administration has attempted to break from the usual list<\/a> of Big Law expats for judicial nominations, Garland\u2019s fealty to old colleagues is making the Justice Department look quite familiar.<\/p>\n Garland\u2019s most concerning connection is Jamie Gorelick, who, despite being unlikely to get a formal role within the department, is positioning herself as a fixer with Washington\u2019s most direct line to Garland\u2019s office and unique power to influence the Biden Department of Justice. Currently a partner at the powerful firm WilmerHale, Gorelick was the former\u00a0No. 2 ranking member in the Clinton Justice Department, where Garland served as her top deputy. Gorelick helped Garland secure his judgeship on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, and since Biden\u2019s announcement of Garland\u2019s nomination, she has been advertising her proximity to Garland and their lengthy friendship. Gorelick and Garland went to college together, and in a recent interview<\/a>, she referred to Garland as her \u201cwingman.\u201d<\/p>\n That\u2019s particularly concerning given Gorelick\u2019s recent history. Gorelick is a notorious wheeler and dealer inside Washington, known for using her connections to ward off penalties for corporate offenders. Gorelick was hired<\/a> to help Google beat a burgeoning antitrust case during the Obama years, successfully pressuring the White House and\u00a0Justice Department to put the brakes on a criminal investigation into the firm. In a separate case against Google, Gorelick also helped shut down a U.S. attorney, to the point that\u00a0the Justice Department even apologized to the company. Gorelick was rumored<\/a> to have arranged the apology.<\/p>\n Gorelick\u2019s record does not stop with Big Tech. She has also represented the cities of Chicago and Baltimore against probes into the police murders of Laquan McDonald and Freddie Gray, respectively. She defended BP after the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill, getting the company off the hook<\/a> for the economic distress brought to the region and dodging demands that the company help pay to restore the Gulf of Mexico, an agreement so favorable to the company that it surprised onlookers. She contributed significant legal work on behalf of the notorious predatory for-profit college University of Phoenix and lobbied against Obama administration efforts to curb subsidies to private student loan firms. She represented Jared Kushner as he navigated federal ethics and anti-nepotism laws while taking a job in the Trump White House, and she even did work for former President Richard Nixon. She\u2019s a former board member of Fannie Mae and a current board member of Amazon.<\/p>\n Since the announcement of Garland\u2019s appointment, Gorelick has been advertising her access to him. WilmerHale, the firm at which she\u2019s a partner, ran an article about their proximity, boasting of her appearance on three legal podcasts where she details\u00a0her unique personal connection to Garland and forecasts what\u00a0his confirmation means for the future of the Department of Justice, before subsequently deleting<\/a> the page. Gorelick did not respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\nGorelick is a notorious wheeler and dealer inside Washington, known for using her connections to ward off penalties for corporate offenders.<\/blockquote>\n