DOJ Opted Not to Prosecute Radical U.S. Attorney for Massachusetts Despite Inspector General’s Referral

President Joe Biden’s Department of Justice (DOJ) opted not to prosecute U.S. Attorney for the District of Massachusetts Rachael Rollins after the Office of the Inspector General determined that she lied under oath and referred its allegation to the DOJ.

The OIG released the results of an investigation into Rollins, who the Heritage Foundation notes was previously backed by left-wing billionaire George Soros, on multiple fronts on Wednesday, finding that she allegedly attempted to influence the Suffolk County District Attorney’s race last year and subsequently lied under oath during an investigation into the matter. Although the watchdog referred their findings to the Department of Justice, it opted not to pursue prosecution.

“On December 16, 2022, pursuant to the Inspector General Act, 5 U.S.C. § 404(d), the OIG referred the false statements allegation to the Department for a prosecutive decision. On January 6, 2023, the Department informed the OIG that it declined prosecution,” reads a footnote on page 80 of the report.

A conviction on such a charge carries a sentence of up to five years in prison, as Cornell Law School notes.

The report found that Rollins, who President Joe Biden nominated to be a U.S. attorney in 2021, aided Boston City Councilman Ricardo Arroyo (D) in the Democrat primary for Suffolk County district attorney by providing negative information about his opponent, then-interim Suffolk County District Attorney Kevin Hayden, to the Boston Globe and Boston Herald. This effort allegedly included Rollins giving the Herald “non-public, sensitive [Department of Justice] material,” which she only had access to because of her position: 

The evidence demonstrated that at a critical stage of the primary race, Rollins brought her efforts to advance Arroyo’s candidacy to the MA USAO, when she used her position as U.S. Attorney, and information available to her as U.S. Attorney, in an ultimately unsuccessful effort to create the impression publicly, before the primary election, that DOJ was or would be investigating Hayden for public corruption. These efforts included, but were not limited to, Rollins trying unsuccessfully to convince her First Assistant U.S. Attorney to issue a letter that would have created the impression that DOJ was investigating Hayden and, when that effort failed, disclosing non-public, sensitive DOJ information directly to a Herald reporter before the primary election. Then, after the Herald did not publish the story before the primary election and Arroyo lost to Hayden, Rollins disclosed additional information to the Herald to damage Hayden’s reputation while he was an uncontested candidate in the general election.

The investigation concluded that Rollins violated multiple sections of the Standards of Ethical Conduct for Employees of the Executive Branch, including Section 2635.702 – the “[u]se of public office for private gain,” and Section 2635.703 – the “[u]se of nonpublic information.” The OIG said that during its interview with Rollins, she “falsely testified under oath…when she denied” providing the non-public information to the Herald reporter.

The OIG only began receiving tips about Rollins’s alleged conduct in the district attorney’s race after it launched an investigation into her presence at a Democrat Party fundraiser where first lady Jill Biden was in attendance last summer, according to the investigation. Per the report, the General Counsel’s Office for the Executive Office for United States Attorneys advised that she could meet Biden briefly outside of the event, but she forwent the ethics advice and attended the fundraiser regardless:

We therefore concluded that Rollins attended a partisan political fundraiser without approval from the Deputy Attorney General, or her designee, as required by Department policy, and her attendance was contrary to the ethics advice she received before the event that gave permission for Rollins to meet and greet with Dr. Biden separately from the fundraiser but did not include approval from the Deputy Attorney General, or her designee, to attend the fundraiser itself.

The Office of the Special Counsel is conducting a separate investigation into this matter, the report states.

Moreover, the report concluded that she solicited 30 tickets to a Boston Celtics game for “youth basketball players for use by her in connection with her official position as U.S. Attorney” and that she accepted two “tickets that the Celtics provided to her due to her official position,” in violation of the Standards of Ethical Conduct.

“After the dust settles and she resigns, Rachael will make herself available to answer questions,” Bromwich said, per Commonwealth Magazine.

Rollins needed Vice President Kamala Harris’s tie-breaking vote to get confirmed as the state’s attorney, with all 50 Republicans in the U.S. Senate at the time opposing her. While appearing on Fox News’s the Ingraham Angle on Wednesday, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) noted, ” I warned 18 months ago that she wasn’t just a radical pro-criminal ideologue but that she had a history of ethical lapses and bad judgment.”