Jonathan Kravis. Credit: Diego M. Radzinschi / ALM

Updated 1:32 p.m.

Jonathan Kravis, a former federal prosecutor who resigned in protest of the Justice Department leadership's intervention in the sentencing of Roger Stone, has joined Munger, Tolles & Olson as a partner in Washington, the law firm said Monday.

In February, Kravis stepped down as a leader of the federal prosecutor's office in Washington after seeing his sentencing recommendation for Stone, a longtime friend and adviser of President Donald Trump, overruled by U.S. Attorney General William Barr. The three other career prosecutors who had helped secure Stone's conviction withdrew from the case but have remained at the U.S. Justice Department.

One of those prosecutors, Aaron Zelinsky, an assistant U.S. attorney in Maryland, is expected to testify Wednesday at the House Judiciary Committee about Barr's leadership of the Justice Department. That leadership is now under fire more than ever, as Barr played a central role in the ouster of the U.S. attorney in Manhattan, Geoffrey Berman, whose office had been leading various probes of figures in Trump's orbit.

In recent months, after leaving the U.S. Attorney's Office, Kravis has advised the District of Columbia's attorney general, Karl Racine, on building a public corruption unit within that office to pursue bribery, fraud and campaign violations in the nation's capital. Kravis delivered his recommendations to Racine last week, laying out what he viewed as the office's existing authority to prosecute public corruption while also pointing to legislative reforms that could strengthen its enforcement powers.

For Kravis, the move to Munger Tolles marks a return to private practice following a career spent largely as a prosecutor.

A former clerk for Justice Stephen Breyer, Kravis worked as an associate at Williams & Connolly before joining the U.S. Attorney's Office in Washington late in the George W. Bush administration. Kravis left in 2009 to spend a year in the Obama White House's counsel's office headed by Gregory Craig, a former Williams & Connolly partner.

"Working in public service is one of the highest callings, and I'm honored to have spent more than a decade at the U.S. Department of Justice and in the White House," Kravis said in a statement released by the firm. "But I've always known that I also wanted to work in a law firm, and Munger, Tolles & Olson's reputation is unparalleled."

Kravis joins a Munger Tolles office headed by Donald Verrilli Jr., who defended the Affordable Care Act before the U.S. Supreme Court as solicitor general under the Obama administration. In an interview Monday, Verrilli told The National Law Journal that he contacted Kravis shortly after he stepped down as a prosecutor. His message to Kravis: If he was considering private practice, "we would love to have a chance to talk to him."

Verrilli said the firm was drawn to Kravis based on his "extraordinary record as a trial lawyer," along with his "character and integrity." Also, he said, Kravis has a "track record as mentor to younger lawyers."

Former U.S. Solicitor General Donald Verrilli Jr., now at Munger Tolles, in his then-office at the U.S. Department of Justice. Credit: Diego M. Radzinschi / NLJ

"That's really really important to us. We have a group of extremely talented young lawyers at Munger Tolles. They're hungry to learn how to be a great trial lawyer, and Jonathan can teach them."

"We think he'll be exactly the kind of lawyer we aspire to be at Munger, Tolles & Olson and, frankly, that every lawyer should aspire to be," Verrilli said.

Verrilli declined to address the recent turmoil at the Justice Department, saying he wanted to "stay focused" on Kravis joining the firm.

After returning to the U.S. Attorney's Office in Washington, Kravis prosecuted homicide cases before joining the public integrity section of the Justice Department's criminal division. His tenure at so-called Main Justice was highlighted by the conviction of former U.S. Rep. Chaka Fattah, a Democrat from Philadelphia who was found guilty of bribery, money laundering and other charges related to his misuse of campaign funds. Fattah resigned in 2016 following his conviction and is now serving a 10-year prison sentence.

Early in the Trump administration, Kravis returned to the federal prosecutor's office in Washington to become deputy chief of the fraud and public corruption unit. In that role, Kravis handled cases the U.S. Attorney's Office inherited from former Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation, including the prosecution of Stone and a separate case against Russian individuals and companies accused of interfering in the 2016 presidential election.

Kravis and other prosecutors had recommended that Stone receive a sentence of between seven and nine years in prison. But, after Trump publicly criticized the recommendation as a "miscarriage of justice," Barr stepped in to suggest a more lenient punishment for the longtime Trump ally. Stone was ultimately sentenced to more than three years in prison.

"The department undercut the work of career employees to protect an ally of the president, an abdication of the commitment to equal justice under the law," Kravis said in a Washington Post op-ed in May.

Barr's conduct in the Stone prosecution became a flash point, raising broader questions about the independence of the U.S. Justice Department.

In the months since, those questions have only intensified as the Justice Department has moved to drop the prosecution of former national security adviser Michael Flynn. More recently, Barr has drawn outcry over pushing out Berman, the leader of the federal prosecutor's office in Manhattan.

In an announcement late Friday, the Justice Department said Berman had stepped down and would be replaced on an acting basis by Craig Carpenito, the top federal prosecutor in New Jersey. Berman quickly issued a rebuke, saying he had not, in fact, stepped down and would not do so until a successor was confirmed.

Barr has not given any public reasoning why he and Trump moved to fire Berman, a former Greenberg Traurig partner who had been serving by appointment of a panel of federal judges in New York.

Berman ultimately agreed to step down after Barr said the president had decided to fire him and that the second-in-charge of the Manhattan federal prosecutor's office, Audrey Strauss, would take over on an acting basis. Trump plans to nominate Jay Clayton, the chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, to serve as the next U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York.

"There has always been a tension—much of it healthy—between Washington and the Southern District, but the attempt to fire the current United States attorney feels very different," wrote former FBI Director James Comey in the Washington Post. "Geoffrey Berman's office has apparently been handling cases very close to the president. In 136 days, there is an election that the incumbent appears likely to lose. The attorney general, surely not proceeding on his own, acts to bump the well-regarded head of the Office on a Friday night, in the middle of a pandemic. Something stinks."

 

---

Read more:

Ex-Stone Prosecutor Kravis' Advice: 'Stay True to the Principles That Led You to Serve'

'A Loss to the Pursuit of Justice': Praise for Roger Stone Prosecutor Who Resigned

'When Character Matters Most': What Lawyers Said About Stone Prosecutors

'A Very Difficult Time': Challenges for Career Lawyers at Trump's DOJ

'Slammed': What Has Driven Departures From Trump's Justice Department