'A Loss to the Pursuit of Justice': Praise for Roger Stone Prosecutor Who Resigned
"In terms of morale, it's taken a hit. No one wants to see their colleagues feel compelled to withdraw or resign from the office," one longtime former leading assistant U.S. attorney in Washington said about the office in the aftermath of the Roger Stone sentencing controversy.
February 17, 2020 at 08:20 AM
9 minute read
Roger Stone was still months away from trial when he walked into a Washington federal courtroom last February, days after a post on his Instagram account featured what appeared to be crosshairs next to his judge's face.
U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson had summoned the two sides into court as she weighed whether Stone's post warranted punishment, including the loss of his liberty as he awaited trial on charges of obstructing a congressional investigation, lying to investigators under oath and witness intimidation. On that afternoon, to the apparent surprise of several in the courtroom, Stone took the stand.
The gambit exposed him to cross-examination, and when that moment came, Jonathan Kravis, a lead prosecutor in the case, rose from his seat.
Kravis' questions would illuminate Stone's personal responsibility for the Instagram post, unraveling his earlier suggestion that a "volunteer" with access to the account might have posted the image. Jackson turned to Stone at one point and said, "Excuse me. Did you not just tell me, under oath, less than five minutes ago, that someone else posted it?"
The moment revealed Kravis' strength as a veteran trial lawyer, a career prosecutor who'd risen through the ranks to become a leader within the U.S. attorney's office in Washington. Stone would not be locked up that day, but he was later convicted.
Now, as Stone awaits sentencing later this week, Kravis is out of a job.
Kravis last week resigned from his post as an assistant U.S. attorney, and three colleagues—Michael Marando, Adam Zelinsky and Adam Jed—withdrew from the Stone case in an apparent protest of Justice Department leadership overruling their recommendation that Stone receive a sentence of between seven and nine years in prison.
The Justice Department leadership's extraordinary intervention has turned Stone's case into a flashpoint, as U.S. Attorney General William Barr and other leaders face broad condemnation for undercutting Kravis and other career prosecutors, inviting questions about whether a politicized Justice Department has bowed to White House pressure to help a friend of the president's. Barr, echoing Trump, recently called the initial recommendation "excessive."
For current and former colleagues, the resignation was a somber end to Kravis' prosecutorial career, a tenure that included a stint at Justice Department headquarters. At the U.S. attorney's office, Kravis had been on prosecution teams involved in cases brought by Special Counsel Robert Mueller III's office.
More than 1,100 former Justice Department lawyers signed a letter supporting Kravis and his colleagues for pushing back after Main Justice intervened in the Stone case. The letter, posted Sunday, called on prosecutors nationwide to "be prepared to report future abuses" to the DOJ's inspector general and to Congress.
The former Justice Department lawyers also said prosecutors should "withdraw from cases that involve such directives or other misconduct; and, if necessary, to resign and report publicly—in a manner consistent with professional ethics—to the American people the reasons for their resignation."
Attempts to reach Kravis were unsuccessful. He has not publicly made any remarks about his resignation.
|Morale's 'Taken a Hit'
Known for a dry, mordant sense of humor, Kravis earned a reputation as a seasoned prosecutor who combined trial instincts with the legal acumen of a Supreme Court clerk. In interviews, his former colleagues in the U.S. attorney's office described him as humble and not one for attention-grabbing martyrdom.
His resignation, they said, could be interpreted as nothing other than a principled stand against politically motivated meddling in a criminal prosecution. The Justice Department has denied that it took action in response to Trump, who tweeted criticism of the original sentencing recommendation last week hours after Kravis' team had made their recommendation.
On LinkedIn, one of Kravis' colleagues in the U.S. attorney's office said it had been a privilege to serve with a prosecutor "who throughout his career served with honor, integrity and distinction."
"The public should know that every day [assistant U.S. attorneys] around the country diligently seek to uphold our oath of office to 'support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic,'" the colleague wrote. "Jon's departure from our office and the department is a loss to the pursuit of justice in this country."
Former prosecutors and defense lawyers, speaking in interviews with The National Law Journal, described Kravis' resignation as a principled statement. "It speaks to his character, his integrity. He's a straight shooter," said Channing Phillips, a longtime former prosecutor in the D.C. office who served as acting U.S. attorney at one time.
Morale in the U.S. attorney's office has suffered in the aftermath of the Stone maneuvering, according to sources familiar with the office, who described career prosecutors as dejected and frustrated with Barr's intervention in Stone's sentencing.
"It's upsetting, no question about it. It's disturbing," Phillips said. "In terms of morale, it's taken a hit. No one wants to see their colleagues feel compelled to withdraw or resign from the office."
Justice Department officials have said the decision to retract the initial recommendation and suggest a more lenient sentence was made the night of Feb. 10, before Trump assailed the original recommendation. Later in the week, after Trump thanked Barr for "taking charge" of the Stone case, Barr told ABC News that Trump's tweets about the Justice Department and pending cases were making it "impossible for me to do my job."
But some observers saw Barr's message not as a rebuke of Trump but rather an attempt to assuage growing criticism that leaders at Main Justice were serving to benefit the president rather than the public more broadly.
|'Smarts and Trial Savvy'
A former clerk for Judge Merrick Garland of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and Justice Stephen Breyer, Kravis worked at the Washington law firm Williams & Connolly before joining the U.S. attorney's office in Washington, the largest in the country, late in the George W. Bush administration.
Kravis departed in 2009 to spend a year in the Obama White House counsel's office headed by Greg Craig, a former Williams & Connolly partner. During his tenure there, Kravis received an ethics waiver allowing him to serve as the White House liaison in dealings with former President George W. Bush's lawyer, Williams & Connolly partner Emmet Flood.
Kravis would return to the U.S. attorney's office in Washington, where he eventually became the rare former Supreme Court clerk to prosecute homicide cases.
"Supreme Court clerks don't become D.C. homicide prosecutors," said Justin Dillon, a partner at Washington's Kaiser Dillon and a former homicide prosecutor who worked with Kravis in the U.S. attorney's office. "He's a unicorn."
Kravis later headed to Main Justice to join the criminal division's public integrity section, a unit tasked with corruption cases. His tenure was highlighted by the prosecution of former U.S. Rep. Chaka Fattah, a Democrat from Philadelphia who was convicted 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.
"He had a combination of smarts and trial savvy," said Glenn Kirschner, a former prosecutor in the U.S. attorney's office. "He had all of those skillsets—a way to appeal to jurors across the spectrum."
In interviews, lawyers pointed to that case as evidence that Kravis was not motivated by politics or an "angry Democrat," as Trump has often referred to those involved in the Mueller investigation.
Kravis returned to the U.S. attorney's office under the Trump administration, when Jessie Liu, then the top prosecutor in Washington, recruited him to become deputy chief of the fraud and public corruption section. Liu joined the Trump administration from Morrison & Foerster, where she had been a white-collar defense partner.
"Not many people come back from Main Justice. So I admired him for that. Now he was going to use his public integrity skillset to work directly for the people of the District of Columbia prosecuting fraud and corruption cases," Kirschner said.
The role put Kravis on a path to high-profile cases brought by the Mueller team. Before signing on for the Stone prosecution, Kravis joined Mueller lawyers in the so-called troll farm case against Russian individuals and companies charged with interfering in the 2016 election.
Last Tuesday, Kravis appeared in court for a hearing in the case against one of the Russian companies, Concord Management and Consulting. With a trial set to begin in April, prosecutors and Concord's defense lawyers at Reed Smith tangled over what evidence could be shown to jurors.
Kravis stayed silent throughout the morning proceeding, rising at one point to pass a note to a younger prosecutor who led arguments for the government.
Shortly after the hearing, Fox News reported that the Justice Department planned to submit a new sentencing recommendation in the Stone case. It was the first Kravis and the three other career prosecutors learned of the Justice Department's extraordinary decision, The New York Times reported.
Within hours, Kravis tendered his resignation.
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