Covington & Burling offices in Washington. Photo: Diego M. Radzinschi/ALM

Updated at 4:10 p.m.

A Covington & Burling partner who was in line to become the compliance monitor overseeing a U.S. settlement with the Chinese telecommunications company ZTE Corp. was rejected after federal officials learned he signed a “Never Trump” letter in the run-up to the presidential election, according to a Reuters report Friday.

Peter Lichtenbaum, a Covington international regulatory compliance partner in Washington, was a signatory on a letter rejecting the candidacy of Donald Trump. The U.S. Commerce Department, led by Wilbur Ross, reportedly rescinded an offer to make Lichtenbaum the ZTE compliance monitor, according to the report.

The agency instead chose Roscoe Howard, a former U.S. attorney in Washington and now a white-collar defense partner at Barnes & Thornburg. Howard and Lichtenbaum were not reached for comment Friday. Reuters reported Lichtenbaum's offer was rescinded days after it was made.

Howard said in a statement Friday through the Commerce Department: “I am honored to be selected for this critical role. My team and I will be vigilant in efforts to ensure that ZTE complies with all U.S. export control laws and regulations.” Ross called Howard “exceptionally well-versed in corporate compliance, having tried more than 100 cases as a federal prosecutor, as well as helping those in the private sector on compliance and ethics issues.”

Lichtenbaum, who co-chairs Covington's international trade and finance practice, was among 50 signatories on the “Never Trump” August 2016 letter, which was styled as a “statement by former national security officials.” Lichtenbaum from October 2003 to February 2006 served as the assistant secretary of commerce for export administration. Lichtenbaum joined Covington in 2010 as a partner; he previously served as vice president for regulatory compliance and international policy at BAE Systems Inc.

“From a foreign policy perspective, Donald Trump is not qualified to be president and commander-in-chief,” the letter said. “Indeed, we are convinced that he would be a dangerous president and would put at risk our country's national security and well-being.” The letter continued: “Most fundamentally, Mr. Trump lacks the character, values and experience to be president. He weakens U.S. moral authority as the leader of the free world. He appears to lack basic knowledge about and belief in the U.S. Constitution, U.S. laws, and U.S. institutions, including religious tolerance, freedom of the press and an independent judiciary.”

Other signatories on the letter included John Bellinger III of Arnold & Porter; Donald Ayer, a former deputy U.S. attorney general who is now of counsel at Jones Day; Larry Thompson, a former deputy U.S. attorney general now at Finch McCranie; and Kenneth Wainstein, a former U.S. attorney in Washington who is a partner at Davis Polk & Wardwell.

ZTE and U.S. regulators reached a settlement in June that lifted sanctions against the company restricting its purchase of U.S. parts. The sanctions had posed a significant threat to ZTE's future. The settlement required ZTE to “retain a team of special compliance coordinators selected by and answerable” to the Commerce Department's Bureau of Industry and Security for 10 years.

“The purpose of this settlement is to modify ZTE's behavior while setting a new precedent for monitoring to assure compliance with U.S. law,” the Commerce Department said in June. “Embedding compliance officers into the company vastly improves the speed with which the Department of Commerce can detect and deal with any violations.”

In November, Howard, a Barnes & Thornburg partner since 2015, co-wrote a piece at The National Law Journal titled “Four Good Reasons to Focus on Compliance.” Howard was the District's top prosecutor from 2001 to 2004.

“Federal prosecutors around the country are increasingly focused on corporate crime,” Howard wrote in the piece with Barnes & Thornburg colleagues Michael Battle and Patrick Miles. “While those cases definitely present more challenges than other, less sophisticated, crimes, the DOJ is not only pursuing sophisticated criminal fraud schemes, it is also getting better at prosecuting them.”

 

Read more:

Covington, Gibson Dunn Are Big Law's DACA Defense at Supreme Court

US to Lift Export Ban on China's ZTE, Embed 'Compliance Coordinators'

Hogan Lovells Lobbying Team Went to Bat for ZTE in Sanctions Row

ZTE Corp. Pleads Guilty to Violating Iran Trade Sanctions

Four Good Reasons to Focus on Compliance

So You Want to be the Herbalife Compliance Monitor? Join the Crowd

 

Update: This report was updated with additional comment about the appointment of the ZTE compliance monitor.