Alum Serves as Deputy Assistant Attorney General

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 there for about five years. Everyone starts doing the same type of cases: entry-level drug, fraud, immigration, and gun crimes, that kind of thing.

Over time, I started to specialize in national security work, mostly international drug trafficking and counterterrorism cases. As part of that work, I was detailed to something called the Guantanamo Review Task Force. Then-President Obama [set] up a task force to evaluate the evidence against detainees in Guantanamo Bay and to make an assessment of whether some of them could be prosecuted in federal court. That experience was eyeopening. I learned a lot about the terrorism threat leading up to and after 9/11.

I was captivated by national security work. I loved working in DC. I loved working in an interagency environment. I had done a few trials in SDNY, but I came to think that maybe I was interested in doing something beyond trial work. By 2012, NSD was looking for someone with prosecutorial experience to start opening national security cyber cases. Before 2012, we didn’t look at statesponsored hacking as a crime that you would investigate and prosecute like any other kind of crime; instead, we looked at it as a military or intelligence problem.

The prosecutor’s office in New York sent me to NSD for four years to build national security cyber cases. At the end of my details, I went back to SDNY and did appellate work for about six months before I was promoted to the job I have now.

PB: There is a classic decision for people wanting to practice criminal law between wanting to be a prosecutor or defense attorney, and you said that you always wanted to be a prosecutor. Could you speak more to why you were passionate about that?

AH: You need both sides. You need good lawyers to be defense lawyers and good lawyers to be prosecutors. Our system of criminal justice rests on both sides having the opportunity to come to court and make their arguments with the idea that the truth will win out. I have a lot of respect for defense attorneys but being a prosecutor spoke to me because I empathize with crime victims. The law is there principally to protect us from people who would intend us harm. There’s an element of patriotism in it, too. I think most Assistant U.S. Attorneys will tell you, there’s something both thrilling and humbling about standing up in court and entering an appearance on behalf of the U.S. government.

PB: Jumping into your current role,would you give examples of prosecutions that each of the offices that you oversee brings?

AH: To take one example, there’s a Chinese telecommunications company called Huawei. It’s currently charged in two cases that are pending in federal court, one in Brooklyn, [and] one in Seattle. The allegations in those cases are essential that the company violated sanctions by doing business through a subsidiary in Iran and making related financial payments through the U.S. financial sector, and also that the company conspired to steal intellectual property from American companies.

To take another example, last September we unsealed charges against two Iranian nationals, who are accused of launching extortionate cyber-attacks on U.S. victims, ranging from state and local governments to utility companies. According to the charges, they used encryption to lock those systems up [...] and then sent ransom demands saying, “if you don’t pay me, I’m either going to leak your information, or I’m going to leave your system locked, or both.” You’ll sometimes hear malicious software used for that purpose referred to as ransomware.

PB: The phrase ‘rule of law’ has been in the news a lot lately. Can you speak a little bit about what it means to you personally, and also what it means to our country?

AH: Sure. What I think of is that you have a neutral principle or standard, and you apply that standard without fear or favor. You apply it to the powerful and the weak, to the rich and the poor, without regard to someone’s station in life, or their resources, or their race or their gender, or anything else and without regard to political parties. You apply the law based on the facts, not based on any of these collateral considerations. I think it’s a critical part of who we are as a country and how our democracy works that we aspire to do this. It’s an imperfect system, but we aspire to apply the law based on the facts, not based on irrelevant considerations.

PB: It is my understanding that Department of Justice employees pride themselves on being apolitical. How do you continue to maintain that in what some would argue is an increasingly partisan environment?

AH: There’s a deep culture of not talking about politics in the Justice Department. What gets you good attention on the street with your friends or on cable TV is not the same thing that gets you good attention within the Justice Department. Within the Justice Department, if you walk around with the same attitude and speech as a cable TV commentator, that will be very bad for your career. The culture of the [DoJ] is not to approach problems through the lens of your own political policy preferences.

The other advantage to my work, and I think to criminal work generally, is that it’s pretty inherently nonpartisan. Whether we’re talking about enforcing drug laws or prosecuting financial fraud, or national security, there’s a common objective there, which is to protect society or protect the victims of fraud, or to advance American interests when it comes to national security, and protect American lives. That’s a pretty common foundation. And you can work from that foundation with colleagues, regardless of what their politics are.

PB: What is the strangest case you’ve ever encountered?

AH: Depends on what you mean by strange, but I will say what I found interesting about prosecuting narcotics traffickers is [that] their work looks like a business. It’s just a bit screwed up. They have some of the same human concerns that many entrepreneurs would have, but it takes them in a different direction.

One case I prosecuted involved an essentially all-female heroin distribution ring, where all of the players were in the same family. The source of supply was nicknamed Abuela. She was in Ecuador. She was sending heroin to relatives in the Bronx, who were then using their daughters and nieces as lookouts when they would sell the drugs, and there was something both fascinating and deeply sad about working on that case.

You asked me a bit about prosecutorial discretion. One of the insights I had as a prosecutor is that the rules are designed to allow you to gather evidence and prosecute the guilty. What made me feel especially empowered as a prosecutor was when, yes, the evidence of guilt was there, but the just result in this case called for an element of discretion. For example, for one of the daughters that I mentioned who was acting as a lookout, it didn’t seem to me or my supervisors that prison time for that first offense was going to be the best outcome. You often have opportunities as a prosecutor to seek less than the law would allow you to in terms of punishment, because it is the more just result or is otherwise justified by the circumstances.

Another case, similar to that, was also a narcotics trafficking conspiracy involving meth distribution. One of the subjects of the investigation was a very young guy who was dating someone who exploited him and used him to run drug proceeds back to the West Coast. But for this case, he was on track to go to, I think, medical school. To me, the mistakes he made were not enough to upend the path he otherwise would be on, and he deserved a second chance. Those are two examples of circumstances where we sought to resolve the case through an alternative disposition, through a lighter sentence or a plea to a lesser offense.

Those cases stand out to me because of the opportunity I had as a lawyer, “Well, I could seek the maximum here, but the fairer thing is something short of that.” I look back on that, and the values of the office, and those are moments of pride.

PB: Have you found your work humanizing at all? There’s a moralistic narrative that we all grew up with, which is just like, criminals are bad. Have you found your work to shift that narrative?

AH: In the sense that people act out of selfishness, greed, or for lack of forethought, yes and no. However, there are instances where one of the defendants I prosecuted molested the three-year-old daughter of his exgirlfriend when she walked out of the room just for a few moments. I also prosecuted terrorist cases. I was involved in the investigation and indictment of the defendants who are responsible for 9/11. I would say that, just as there is a spectrum of character and human nature, there are some people who make a single mistake, and then there are others who seem more purely venal and selfish, and you have less sympathy for them.

PB: What is one class in college that you didn’t take, but wish you had?

AH: Computer Science.

PB: That makes sense. If you could be doing anything else other than what you’re doing right now, what do you think that it would be?

AH: Hard question. When I was a kid, I thought about being a pilot. How many 10-year-olds want to be pilots? Probably a lot. But I’ve never second-guessed being a lawyer. I honestly can’t imagine what I’d do if I weren’t a lawyer.

In college, I worked for the Davidsonian my freshman year, and when I went to Harvard, I worked for the Harvard Crimson. I think being a reporter was fun. I don’t know if I could have survived or thrived as a journalist. I think I probably found the calling for me, but maybe that would have been the alternative.

PB: Is there any advice that you want to give Davidson undergraduates?

AH: I get that question a lot. There are two things I say in response. One is to read the newspaper. I got this advice from one of my Davidson professors, Professor Ahrensdorf. You should read the newspaper every day. Even if you may not be able to make it through all of it, understanding what’s happening in the world is really important and understanding it by reading something that someone has taken the time and care to put into paragraphs of text is different from grabbing whatever the headline of the moment is on TV. Breaking news has its place, but it’s hard to offer context and thoughtful reflection the moment something happens.

And the second thing is when I was in college, I put a lot of thought into, “okay, I’m here, how do I get there? And how will that get me all the way over there?” You do have to think about where you want to end up and how to position yourself. But it’s really important to figure out what you like, what you want, and not just professionally, but also what kind of life you want to have.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.