A Nonpartisan National Security
From its outset, the Justice Department's National Security Division has been immune to political influence, even in the midst of hyper-partisanship. This is seen best in the AAGs for the NSD.
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Justice in Brief
In the District of Puerto Rico, the president of a steel company entered a guilty plea to charges of price fixing. He conspired with other steel companies to fix the cost of reinforcement bars. This occurred during the reconstruction periods after hurricanes severely damaged Puerto Rico’s homes and buildings.
In the Southern District of Mississippi, a seafood distribution company and two managers entered guilty pleas to misbranding the seafood it sold. It promoted the seafood as locally produced when, in fact, it was foreign imports.
In the Southern District of Alabama, a navy shipbuilding company entered a guilty plea to falsely inflating its profits on ships it built for the US Navy. These false statements were sent to investors and potential investors to induce them to invest in the company.
Nonpartisanship in the National Security Division
In today’s hyper-partisan world, few government agencies escape the infusion of partisan politics into their daily work. Policy followed by one administration is reversed by the next and reversed again by the one after that. The Justice Department’s National Security Division has managed to avoid this policy pendulum. It has done so because those appointed to the Assistant Attorney General post have been largely nonpartisan in their backgrounds and approach to the position.
Since its creation 18 years ago, the National Security Division has been led by only six Senate-confirmed people. While there have been a couple of interim Assistant Attorneys General, none have served for a significant length of time. Instead, the average Senate-confirmed Assistant has served three years. As a group, all entered with experience as federal prosecutors and most worked on the staff for high-ranking Justice Department officials. These experiences brought a professional perspective to the work and provided insight into the policymaking process. This brings a shared understanding of the work and has contributed to the nonpartisanship.
Kenneth Wainstein
Republican President George W. Bush appointed Kenneth Wainstein as the first Assistant Attorney General for the National Security Division. Wainstein began his government career as an assistant United States Attorney first in the Southern District of New York and then in the District of Columbia. In 2001, Wainstein moved to the Justice Department as the head of the Executive Office of United States Attorneys. In this role, he oversaw the work of all 93 United States Attorneys and served as their main liaison with the main Justice Department. After a year, he moved over to the FBI, serving as Director Robert Mueller’s chief of staff. At the beginning of Bush’s second term, Wainstein was appointed as the US Attorney for the District of Columbia. Bush then moved him from that role to the Assistant Attorney General post. He remained in the position for most of the remaining years of Bush’s presidency, leaving to become the President’s Homeland Security Advisor for the remaining time. Upon taking office, Weinstein formed a group of several Deputy Assistant Attorneys General. Among them were Matt Olson and John Demers, two future NSD Assistant Attorneys General. After serving in private practice for a number of years, Wainstein was nominated by President Biden and confirmed by the Senate as the Undersecretary for Intelligence and Analysis and is currently in that position.
David Kris
With the start of Democrat Barack Obama’s presidency, David Kris received the appointment as Assistant Attorney General for the National Security Division. He remained in that role until 2011 when he left to co-found a venture capital firm. Kris began his Justice Department career as an Assistant United States Attorney for the District of Columbia, overlapping his time with Kenneth Wainstein. Kris, in 2000, would move to the main Justice Department as a Deputy Attorney General. He remained there until 2003 when he joined Time Warner. While at Time Warner, Kris became a vocal critic of how the Bush Administration conducted the Terrorist Surveillance Program and Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act monitoring. He also wrote the leading treatise on national security investigations and prosecutions.
Lisa Monaco
Lisa Monaco served as the second Assistant Attorney General for the National Security Division under Attorney General Eric Holder. Monaco began her Justice Department career as Counsel to Attorney General Janet Reno. From there, Monaco moved to the US Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia. She served on the Enron Task Force that investigated fraud related to the failed energy giant. Then she moved the FBI and, like Wainstein, served as Chief of Staff to FBI Director Robert Mueller. Later, she would become the Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General while David Kris was the NSD Assistant Attorney General. With Kris’s departure, Monaco became his replacement. After her time leading the National Security Division, in 2013, she moved to the White House as President Obama’s Homeland Security and Counterterrorism Advisor. She advised the president on a myriad of national security matters until the end of the Obama presidency. During Republican Donald Trump’s presidency, she worked in private practice. With the start of Democrat Joe Biden’s presidency, Monaco became the Deputy Attorney General under Merrick Garland.
John Carlin
Lisa Monaco’s successor as Assistant Attorney General for National Security has made a habit of following her lead. Carlin began his career in the Justice Department’s Tax Division but his relatively vast knowledge of computers (in his words, this meant he could operate the Department’s printers), brought him into the world of cybercrime. He remained in the Tax Division until 2001 when he switched to the United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia. In 2007, Carlin returned to the Justice Department to become the national coordinator for computer hacking and intellectual property crimes. In this role, he saw first hand how foreign nations used hackers to undermine United States national security. Carlin also worked with Lisa Monaco again. They two worked together in the DC US Attorney’s Office. Serving as FBI Director Robert Mueller’s special counsel, Monaco asked Carlin to be her replacement when she moved to become Mueller’s chief of staff. Soon, he would replace Monaco as Mueller’s chief of staff. When Monaco moved to the White House, Carlin replaced her as Assistant Attorney General for the National Security Division. In that role, he initiated the Department’s “name and shame” policy for cybercrime. The government would indict foreign hackers despite knowing that it would never be able to arrest them. The hope was that identifying them would deter them from engaging in further activities. Its success, like most criminal justice policies, is uncertain. Carlin would leave the post before Obama left office and begin private practice. When Joe Biden became presidents, Carlin served briefly as Acting Deputy Attorney General and, when Monaco became Deputy, Carlin was her principal deputy. He would eventually return to private practice.
John Demers
One year after Donald Trump became President, John Demers became the Assistant Attorney General for the National Security Division. Like many government positions, it took the new Administration a long time to fill top positions. Demers was one of the apolitical appointments. He and John Carlin had attended law school together. After working in private practice and the 9/11 attacks, Demers went into public service. He joined the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel. Two years later, he spent the October 2005 term of the Supreme Court as one of Justice Scalia’s law clerks. When the Justice Department created the National Security Division and the clerkship ended, Demers joined Wainstein’s staff. After serving in that role for a year, Demers was chief counsel to the Deputy Attorney General for several months and then as a Deputy Assistant Attorney General for the National Security Division. With the start of the Obama Administration, Demers moved to Boeing as counsel. Demers remained Assistant Attorney General throughout the Trump presidency and into the Biden presidency. Like Carlin’s “name and shame” policy, Demers initiated a “China Initiative” that made national security crimes committed by China and those working for it a top priority. It expanded Carlin’s policy beyond hacking to include intellectual property crime and Chinese surveillance of the United States. In the end, he was the only Trump appointee to serve into the Biden Administration. When Demers left, he returned to Boeing.
Matt Olson
Matt Olson replaced Demers. Like Demers, Olson was a Deputy Assistant Attorney General for the National Security Division under Wainstein. Olson’s road to his initial NSD appointment in 2006 occurred after a long Justice Department career. He started in the Civil Rights Division. After two years, he moved—like many of his predecessors—joined the US Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia. He remained there for twelve years. His last position was leading the office’s national security division. After his post as Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the National Security Division at the start of the Obama Administration, Olson was selected to lead the Guantanamo Review Task Force that determined which detainees at that marine base there could be released and then arranged for their release. In 2011, Olson became director of the National Counterterrorism Center, an interagency organization designed to centralize intelligence related to terrorist attacks on the US. He left in 2014 and returned to government in 2021 with his appointment as Assistant Attorney General.
Nonpartisanship
In Project 2025’s plan for the Justice Department, Gene Hamilton claims the National Security Division is not doing its job properly. To say that means that the Trump Administration let the Division languish too because everyone who has served as the Assistant Attorney General for the National Security Division has been nonpartisan and have made no partisan policy choices. One need look only at the career paths of those who have served in the role.
They share certain characteristics. All had significant prior experience with the Justice Department. All were career attorneys, meaning they were not political appointments. They also served as staff members for high-ranking Justice Department officials. Many also served as Deputy Assistant Attorneys General which means they led one aspect of the National Security Division. At one time or another, almost all of them worked together. Several came through the US Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia.
These shared experiences generated two important effects. First, it established a professional network. Any subsequent Assistant Attorney General can talk with a predecessor. They also have complete institutional memory. Demers and Carlin were there at the start and know the people in between. Second, it creates a shared perspective. They all understand national security law. They understand the policies. Their approach to prosecution is similar as they came through the same professional culture. These two effects create the nonpartisan national security prosecution policy the Department of Justice has implemented since 2006. That is a rare thing in today’s hyper-partisan environment.
I hope you enjoyed this issue and that it made you stop and think. I would love to hear any comments, questions, concerns, or criticisms that you have. Leave a comment or send a message! Also, if you enjoyed this or if it challenged your thinking, please subscribe and share with others!