The U.S. Justice Department has launched a search for a new leader of the criminal division team tasked with handling some of the most significant white-collar prosecutions, including financial fraud and foreign bribery cases, according to a new job posting.

The announcement follows the departure of Andrew Weissmann, the last fraud division chief to hold the position on a permanent basis, who left the Justice Department to join the New York University School of Law. In 2017, Weissmann joined the special counsel, Robert Mueller III, in his investigation of the Trump campaign and Russia's interference in the 2016 election.

Weissmann played a leading role in the prosecutions of former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and other associates of the president. In that time, two Justice Department attorneys have served as the acting chief of the fraud section.

Weissmann's top deputy, Sandra Moser, rose in 2017 to acting chief of the fraud section, with Robert Zink, a leader of the securities and financial fraud unit, stepping in as her acting principal deputy. In January, Moser departed the Justice Department for Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, where she leads the firm's white-collar defense practice group. Announcing the move, Quinn Emanuel described Moser as a “protégé and hand-picked successor of Andrew Weissmann, a key member of Mueller's team handling the Russia probe.”

Since then, Zink, who joined the fraud section in 2010, has served as the fraud section's acting chief. Zink earlier was at Covington & Burling in Washington.

“My sense is that [Justice Department leadership] would be willing to hire from inside,” Moser told The National Law Journal in an interview. “They don't have an agenda here—somebody hand-picked in the hopper, an old pal. There are excellent people in supervisory positions, steps removed from section head, but that doesn't mean they're not capable.”

If an outside candidate fills the section chief position, Moser said, “it would be very beneficial for that person to have experience prosecuting white-collar crime within the Department of Justice and certainly within the fraud section—to know the players, some of the procedures.”

A Justice Department spokesman declined to comment on future job postings and personnel decisions.

In the past two years, the Justice Department has taken steps to incentivize cooperation with investigations and provide benefits to companies that voluntarily disclose violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, the federal law prohibiting bribery to build business overseas.

Early in his tenure as the Justice Department's second-ranking official, Deputy Attorney Rod Rosenstein issued an enforcement policy establishing a presumption that companies will avoid charges if they come forward about misconduct, fully cooperate with investigations, give up ill-gotten gains, and take steps to improve their compliance programs. The criminal division's leadership later broadened that approach as “nonbinding guidance” for health care and securities fraud cases, along with other corporate prosecutions.

Rosenstein has also urged the Justice Department to avoid “piling on” penalties when other agencies are involved in enforcement actions, and he has given prosecutors added flexibility to award cooperation credit in civil cases.

Benczkowski Brian Benczkowski testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee during his confirmation hearing to be assistant attorney general in the criminal division. Photo: Diego M. Radzinschi/ NLJ

Assistant Attorney General Brian Benczkowski, who leads the criminal division, has issued guidance detailing how prosecutors will evaluate the effectiveness of a company's compliance program and determine whether it is worthy of cooperation credit. Benczkowski, a former partner at Kirkland & Ellis, has also expressed an interest in building compliance expertise at the Justice Department—both through hiring and training of current prosecutors.

Last week, as Benczkowski rolled out the new guidance in Dallas, the Justice Department held a compliance training session in Washington for prosecutors, with representatives of the Securities and Exchange Commission and other agencies among the nearly 200 in attendance.

“Obviously, those within the section have the benefit of their experience working corporate matters and analyzing compliance programs, as well as that provided by the recent enhanced training and guidance issued,” Moser said. “However, it may be that there is a candidate who not only possesses prosecutorial experience, but also time spent in a company working directly on such issues, and that very well could be viewed as a plus in the hiring decision.”

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