D.C. Attorney General Karl Racine. Photo: Diego M. Radzinschi / ALM

Two months after resigning from the U.S. Justice Department, federal prosecutor Jonathan Kravis has joined the attorney general's office in Washington, D.C., to build a public corruption unit targeting bribery, fraud and campaign violations.

As special counsel for public corruption, Kravis will advise the district's attorney general, Karl Racine, on how to structure the new division and on any legislation necessary for empowering the unit.

"Jonathan Kravis is one of our country's most respected prosecutors," Racine said in a prepared statement. "He has earned his exceptional reputation for ethically and successfully prosecuting public corruption cases."

Kravis' move comes just months after he departed the U.S. attorney's office in Washington, in apparent protest of the Justice Department leadership's remarkable intervention in the sentencing of Roger Stone. Last year, Kravis played a leading role in the prosecution of Stone, a longtime friend and confidant of President Donald Trump who was found guilty of obstructing a congressional investigation, lying to investigators and intimidating a witness who went on to testify at his trial.

In early February, Kravis and other career prosecutors had recommended that Stone be sentenced to between seven and nine years, only to be overruled a day later by the Justice Department's politically appointed leaders, who stepped in to suggest a shorter period of incarceration. As three other career prosecutors on the trial team withdrew from the case, Kravis opted to resign from the Justice Department entirely.

A former Supreme Court clerk to Justice Stephen Breyer and a White House lawyer under President Barack Obama, Kravis was eyed within Washington's legal community as an attractive candidate for a partnership at a prominent defense firm. In joining Racine's office, he chose instead to remain in the public sector, finding a professional landing spot where he can continue to focus on his specialty as a prosecutor: public integrity.

Before his latest stint in the U.S. attorney's office, Kravis had been a prosecutor in the public integrity section of the Justice Department's criminal division, a unit focused on corruption cases. His tenure in that office 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.

In a move that was seen as somewhat unusual, Kravis left his role in the Justice Department's criminal division early in the Trump administration to rejoin the U.S. attorney's office in Washington, where he became the deputy chief of the fraud and public corruption section. Kravis had prosecuted homicide cases in the U.S. attorney's office earlier in his career.

"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," said Glenn Kirschner, a former prosecutor in the U.S. attorney's office, in an interview earlier this year.

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