Crowell & Moring has hired Chuck Rosenberg, the former acting head of the Drug Enforcement Agency, as senior counsel in Washington, D.C.

Rosenberg exited the DEA late last year after sending an email to agency staff that seemed to rebuke President Donald Trump over remarks about the treatment of criminal suspects. Rosenberg told DEA staffers that the president's statements ”condoned police misconduct.”

Rosenberg was named acting DEA administrator in 2015. Trump decided to keep him in place in 2017, but Trump's firing of former FBI director James Comey cast doubt on Rosenberg's future In the administration. Prior to leading the DEA, Rosenberg served as chief of staff to Comey from 2013 to 2015.

Earlier in his career, Rosenberg worked from 2002 to 2003 as counsel to then-FBI director Robert Mueller, who is now the special counsel investigating Russian meddling in the 2016 campaign and election. Rosenberg is the only person to have served on the staffs of both Mueller and Comey at the FBI, according to his Washington Speakers Bureau profile.

As a member of Crowell & Moring's white-collar and regulatory enforcement practice, Rosenberg will draw on governmental experience dating back to that period and to his time as a U.S. attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia. In that role from 2006 to 2008, he brought dogfighting charges against former Atlanta Falcons and Virginia Tech quarterback Michael Vick and was involved in the government's death-penalty case against convicted Sept. 11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui, according to The Washington Post.

“Through his experience operating at the highest levels of the Justice Department, he gained unsurpassed insight into the government's enforcement priorities and processes,” said Philip Inglima, Crowell & Moring chair, in a statement. “He will undoubtedly enhance the firm's white-collar capabilities to conduct monitorships and sensitive internal investigations, and he will be an invaluable counselor to clients facing significant legal, regulatory, and public policy challenges.”

Inglima previously told The National Law Journal that the firm had invested heavily in the acquisition of more talent for investigations, and expected business to boom in its investigations practice in the coming year. Crowell & Moring is coming off of its “second-biggest year ever” in terms of financial growth, according to Inglima.

According to an earlier Justice Department announcement on his appointment to lead the DEA, Rosenberg previously practiced as counsel at Hunton & Williams from 2000 to 2002, and as partner at Hogan Lovells from 2008 to 2013.