Chuck Rosenberg. Photo: Diego M. Radzinschi/ALM

When Chuck Rosenberg begins one of his interviews of a high-ranking government lawyer or official for his podcast "The Oath With Chuck Rosenberg," he typically begins by asking where his guest was born, or where they grew up, or about some life-shaping episode from their childhood.

Rosenberg, the widely respected former federal public servant—he held posts in two different presidential administrations ranging from U.S. attorney appointments in Virginia and Texas to counsel to then-FBI director Robert Mueller—is feeling his way into an "exploration of those who have chosen public service as a career," he says.

He's not interested in listing his guest's stellar resume or in confronting some weighty issue crashing today's news. He wants to get at what made his guest who they are today and at how they rose to a top-level government position—or, as he says, "what shaped them, what informed them, what drove them along way."

In a recent interview with the New York Law Journal and ALM about his podcast—now in its second season and bringing in about 200,000 to 300,000 downloads per episode, according to MSNBC, a significant portion of them attorneys and government employees and officials—Rosenberg also said that "The Oath" offers a "crash course on leadership."

These are usually "thoughtful, humble, and talented men and women who have led at the highest levels of government," he said. "And they are usually much more interesting than they are sometimes portrayed on TV" during interviews or news reports about what they've done or decided.

His guests, both last season and this season (though less so this season, he says) are largely people "that I know" or "know of" from decades spent in federal government service and high-level legal circles, Rosenberg said. (He also served as administrator of the Drug Enforcement Agency, chief of staff to then-FBI director James Comey, and counsel to then-Attorney General John Ashcroft, to tick off a few more past positions.)

Early guests in the initial podcast season included Preet Bharara, former U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York; Comey; and Andrew McCabe, a former deputy director at the FBI.

In this second season—its fourth podcast will be released Wednesday—"we are sort of broadening our horizons," maintained Rosenberg, naming second-season guests including William McRaven, a former Navy admiral and commander of U.S. Special Operations Command; James Stavridis, a retired Navy admiral and former commander of U.S. European Command and NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe; Robert Paulson, a former commissioner of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police; and Kathy Ruemmler, a former White House Counsel, federal prosecutor and a lead prosecutor in the Enron scandal.

And while he works diligently to unearth life stories and lessons from men and women who spend an hour with Rosenberg for a weekly podcast, he also sometimes does draw out guests about some of their toughest or most significant professional decisions.

Last season, for example, Sally Yates, the former acting U.S. attorney general under President Donald Trump, discussed why she refused to allow DOJ lawyers to argue for the president's original travel ban and why she thought it was more important to defy Trump on the issue—leading to her firing—than just resign.

At one point in the interview, Yates told Rosenberg that "to me, doing something less than" outright refusing to defend the ban—referring to the original Trump administration travel ban issued in January 2017 that applied to seven Muslim-majority countries—such as resigning, "maybe that protects my personal integrity, but it's not protecting the Department of Justice. And as the acting attorney general I believe that that was my responsibility."

McRaven, whose podcast interview has already been released, talked about how to plan and rehearse special operations, Rosenberg said, and described "a moving scene" in which a special message of inspiration was read to the now-famous Navy SEAL Team Six before they flew off in darkness to Abbottabad, Pakistan, to kill Osama bin Laden.

Rosenberg, who is currently a senior counsel in Crowell & Moring's Washington, D.C., office, said that he came up with the idea for "The Oath" after appearing regularly on MSNBC as a commentator on "rule of law" issues. He enjoyed the appearances, he said, but found that they didn't offer "enough time and space to really drill down on some of the personalities and issues" at hand.

The hour-long podcast format, he said, gives him time to talk with guests who can be "remarkably introspective."

"The people who are in the news are multidimensional and have fascinating backgrounds and stories, and I wanted to help tell those," he said.

He added, "I was also looking for a way for more light than heat. A lot of times in our public discourse there isn't interest in long-form stories and thoughtful responses—we end up yelling at each other a lot."

My guests talk about "humility, failure and struggle, about second chances," he said.

He added that he has gotten thousands of emails from "Oath" listeners, including "from a number of judges who say … they're glad that there's a space to explain complicated things in a thoughtful way."

In addition, "I've heard from a number of federal defenders"—for instance, he said, after a recent episode with a prosecutor of 9/11 attacker Zacarias Moussaoui in which the "important work" of the federal public defenders was also praised.

They "appreciated that their work was noted," he explained, adding that the public defenders involved "were another part of the system and were necessary to its fair operation" in the Moussaoui case, in which Moussaoui ultimately pleaded guilty.

Rosenberg also noted one other aim of his podcast. He hopes that younger people considering government-focused public service roles are "inspired" when they hear an "Oath" podcast.

"We need the best and brightest to serve," he said. "I hope they are listening and they sign up. We need the best and brightest."