BFF-03 US Justice Department’s No. 3 official resigns

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BFF-03

US-POLITICS-JUSTICE

US Justice Department’s No. 3 official resigns

WASHINGTON, Feb 10, 2018 (BSSAFP) – The third-ranking official at the US
Justice Department is resigning just nine months after taking the powerful
position at the agency that President Donald Trump has been criticizing
sharply.

Associate Attorney General Rachel Brand would have inherited oversight of
a probe into possible Trump campaign links to Russian interference in the
2016 election if the president forced out the Justice Department’s number
two, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.

Trump and Republican legislators have stepped up attacks on the agency
over Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s probe.

“The men and women of the Department of Justice impress me every day,”
said Brand, a national security law expert who is due to take up a position
in the private sector in the coming weeks.

“I am proud of what we have been able to accomplish over my time here.”

Brand, 44, was named to the Justice Department by then president George W.
Bush in 2003, and left four years later to work in the private sector.

In 2012, president Barack Obama — a Democrat — appointed her to the
Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, which reviewed the legality of
the National Security Agency’s surveillance programs, especially its data
collection on US citizens, which Brand defended.

She rejoined the Justice Department in May, appointed by Trump and working
directly below Rosenstein and Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who recused
himself from involvement with the Mueller probe due to his own work for the
Trump campaign.

Sessions praised Brand in a statement, saying she had “shown real
leadership over many important divisions at the department.”

Trump, frustrated by the Russian investigation, has reportedly considered
firing Rosenstein, the only person empowered to dismiss Mueller.

A recent memo from congressional Republicans took aim at Rosenstein for
his role in obtaining wiretap warrants on a member of the Trump campaign who
had numerous Russian contacts, which the memo described as an abuse of power.

If Rosenstein were forced out, that would have put Brand uncomfortably in
the White House’s crosshairs, at least until a new deputy attorney general
could be nominated and then approved by Congress.

BSS/AFP/MRI/0821 hrs