Thread by @DavidCranmerUn1

FARA chief leaves DOJ - POLITICO

VAN GRACK’S NEW GIG: Brandon Van Grack, the first-ever head of the Justice Department’s FARA office and a lead prosecutor for special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation, has left DOJ after more than a decade to politico.com/newsletters/po…

become a partner at the law and lobbying firm Morrison & Foerster, where he will co-chair the national security practice and handle investigations and white collar defense. — The FARA unit did suffer a handful of prominent defeats in recent years, however. Former President Barack

Obama’s White House counsel, Gregory Craig, was charged with lying to the Justice Department about his work for the Ukrainian government, but was acquitted in 2019. After the department secured a conviction against one of Flynn’s associates, Bijan Rafiekian, a federal judge later

overturned the guilty verdicts. Under Van Grack, the department saw foreign agent registrations soar as it began issuing more advisory opinions to provide lawyers with guidance on when registering was necessary. Most recently, he was Chief of DOJ’s Foreign Agents Registration

Act (FARA) Unit, after serving as a lead prosecutor for Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation of the Russian government’s efforts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election.

As Counsel to the Assistant Attorney General, Brandon oversaw every criminal investigation involving export control and sanctions and led the DOJ’s response to the Obama Administration’s rollback of sanctions targeting Iran – the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). As a

Trial Attorney, he prosecuted more than 30 export control and sanctions cases, including first-ever cases involving North Korea, weapons of mass destruction, and the Atomic Energy Act. Brandon has also handled the review of transactions before CFIUS and Team Telecom across

multiple administrations. During the Obama Administration, he managed the DOJ’s review of transactions before CFIUS, to include advising on mitigation proposals, and over the last year he led DOJ’s review of transactions involving foreign influence before CFIUS and Team Telecom.

As Chief of the FARA Unit, and the first official to supervise all foreign influence matters across the DOJ, Brandon revitalized and transformed the enforcement of FARA. Following the DOJ’s announcement making FARA an enforcement priority, he supervised a team of 40 attorneys and

staff that opened a record number of investigations, pursued a record number of enforcement actions, secured a record number of registrations, and obtained the first civil injunction involving FARA in nearly three decades. Brandon also directed the review of Lobbying Disclosure

Act (LDA) filings for criminal violations and regulated the exemption under FARA for LDA registrants. As a long-time prosecutor, including as a Special Assistant U.S. Attorney for the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia, Brandon directed complex cyber

investigations, including multiple matters involving state-sponsored cyber attacks. He prosecuted the first person convicted as a cyberterrorist and led the investigation of an international hacking group for identity theft, extortion, and dozens of spearphishing attacks against

public and private entities. He also collaborated with other government agencies, such as the Securities and Exchange Commission, Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Department of Homeland Security, to facilitate cooperation from corporate victims and disseminate threat

information. Brandon earned his J.D. from Harvard Law School and his B.A. from Duke University. He began his legal career as an associate in the Washington, D.C. office of a global law firm, where he represented clients accused of fraud and violating securities law and

regulations. He later served as a law clerk for the Hon. Thomas F. Hogan, U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Brandon has been widely recognized for his expertise in handling national security matters, and he regularly keynotes and speaks at industry conferences

involving political activities, export control and sanctions, and FARA. He has received numerous awards for his work, including the Attorney General’s Award for Distinguished Service (2018), the FBI Director’s Award for Outstanding Cyber Investigation (2017), the Homeland

Security Investigations Executive Associate Director’s Award for Outstanding Counterproliferation Investigation (2014), and five awards from the Assistant Attorney General for National Security. He was also recognized by DCA Live as a Rising Star of Law, 40 Under 40 (2018).