Robert Cindrich served as the federal government’s top prosecutor in Pittsburgh during the Jimmy Carter administration.
He took over the U.S. Attorney’s office a few years after Dick Thornburgh, who later went on to be the Republican governor of Pennsylvania and attorney general of the United States.
To Cindrich, who later became a federal judge, Thornburgh embodied what an attorney general should be: learned, worldly and sophisticated.
That’s why, Cindrich said the nomination of former Florida congressman Matt Gaetz to the nation’s highest law enforcement post, was so surprising.
“If we’re matching career credentials, education, experience, time as a prosecutor or defender,” Cindrich said this week, “it’s not a good match.”
Cindrich’s comments embody one truth about Matt Gaetz: He’s nothing if not a controversial choice for attorney general.
Having cultivated a reputation as a pot-stirrer in Congress, the Florida firebrand is the subject of allegations, which he and the Trump transition team deny, that he had sex with underage girls and paid to have sex with women.
Those claims were investigated by a House Ethics Committee investigation that ended its probe only with Gaetz’s resignation from his House seat last week.
On Wednesday, the nominee met privately with some of the very Republican senators who will help determine whether he gets the nation’s top law enforcement job.
Several senators warned against a rush to judgment.
“I’m not going to legitimize the process to destroy the man because people don’t like his politics,” Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said, according to The Associated Press. “He deserves a chance to make his argument why he should be attorney general.”
Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., supports Gaetz’s nomination.
“If you have concerns, that’s fine,” Hawley said, the AP reported. “But don’t make up your mind yet. Let the guy testify first.”
TribLive interviewed nine former federal prosecutors about the Gaetz nomination. Most served in Pittsburgh and represent both Democrats and Republicans. Several former U.S. Attorneys in Pittsburgh who were appointed by Republican presidents either declined comment or did not respond to interview requests.
Setting policy
The Department of Justice, on its home page, describes its mission as one to “uphold the rule of law, keep our country safe and protect civil rights.”
It includes 94 individual U.S. attorney’s offices, the FBI, DEA, ATF, Bureau of Prisons and U.S. Marshals Service. It has a $67 billion budget, and its employees are scattered across the United States and around the world.
The sprawling agency handles terrorism, narcotrafficking, healthcare fraud and white-collar crime, to name just a few of its priorities.
But the role of the attorney general is largely viewed as setting the priorities of the Justice Department, which come at the urging of the president.
“The emphasis can change over time,” said Stephen Kaufman, who retired in the spring after spending 33 years as a criminal prosecutor in the U.S. Attorney’s office in Pittsburgh.
Some administrations have emphasized public corruption, drugs and guns. Others have focused on human trafficking and child exploitation.
Whether Gaetz gets the post, which is subject to Senate approval, experts who spent decades working in U.S. attorney’s offices in Pennsylvania believe there should be little impact on how career prosecutors do their jobs.
“They have a duty. They have a task. They’ve taken an oath,” said Bruce Antkowiak, a former federal prosecutor who teaches at Saint Vincent College. “They have to continue to do their job.”
Antkowiak said it’s the role of the attorney general to make policy.
“They’re not the guy going into court to argue a case or write briefs,” he said. “You have to judge them for their capacity to make legal policy.”
They must also run an organization with 115,000 employees.
“It requires more skills than being a good lawyer,” Cindrich said. “It’s managing an immense office with complex responsibilities nationwide.”
Stature and respect
Kaufman, who served for nine months as acting U.S. attorney and ran the office’s criminal division, was shocked by the Gaetz nomination.
“It’s important an attorney general be a lawyer of stature and someone who’s respected by law enforcement and both political parties,” Kaufman said.
The attorney general should bring to the position good judgment based on experience in the legal field, he said.
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“It’s not so much the lack of courtroom experience, it’s the lack of experience working as an attorney,” Kaufman said.
Gaetz, who graduated from William & Mary Law School in 2007, was elected to the state house in Florida in 2010 at age 27.
He was elected to Congress in 2016.
According to PolitiFact, Gaetz’s courtroom experience is limited, with his name appearing as counsel in fewer than a dozen cases in the county where he practiced. From 2009 to 2016, Gaetz argued, on average, one case per year. Those included speeding charges; worker’s compensation claims; child custody issues and negligence in a civil matter.
He also won at least two appeals, PolitiFact found.
While the Department of Justice investigated the allegations against Gaetz, 42, and chose not to prosecute him, Kaufman said, that doesn’t mean that what was uncovered in their investigation won’t come to light.
All of it will likely be exposed if Gaetz goes through a full background investigation prior to being submitted for Senate confirmation.
Harry Litman, who served as U.S. Attorney in Pittsburgh under the Bill Clinton administration, said the background investigation for attorney general is much more probing than what would have been done by the ethics committee.
Among the goals for such an investigation, he said, is to ensure the nominee will not breach national security or become subject to blackmail.
If Gaetz’s nomination makes it to the Senate, Antkowiak said, the confirmation process will be something to see.
“With an individual who has engendered the response and ire he has, I would expect very contentious hearings.”
Litman called Gaetz unfit for the position.
“He has contempt for the mission of the rank and file who are the lifeblood of the department,” Litman said.
Huge bureaucracy
For those who fear what a Trump administration will bring to the department, Antkowiak noted it’s not easy to change such a behemoth organization.
“The capacity to make radical change is almost impossible because of the presence of the huge bureaucracy,” he said. “It’s a massive operation.”
The department’s routine business, Antkowiak said, occurs every day in offices across the country.
“The business of the U.S. attorney is just going to go on. They will continue to do their work the way they believe the law dictates.”
Those who have served as U.S. attorney said that there is a distance between “main Justice” in Washington, D.C. and the field offices.
William McSwain served as U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania in the first Trump administration.
“U.S. attorney’s offices have a pretty great degree of autonomy on priorities and initiatives and operations — oftentimes rather independent from Washington,” he said.
Part of the reason for that, McSwain said, is that local prosecutors know their communities best.
Robert S. Cessar, who retired in the spring after 34 years in the U.S. Attorney’s office in Pittsburgh, said local offices are required to get approval for a handful of criminal charges — like racketeering or to seek the death penalty — and they often work closely on civil rights investigations.
“The day-to-day reality is that the people in the U.S. attorney’s offices do our own thing in a non-political manner without a lot of guidance from D.C.,” said Cessar, who served as acting U.S. attorney in 2010. “We go to them for consultation and advice, not for approval or disapproval.”
Most of those interviewed for this story said that their biggest concern for the future of the Justice Department is the potential misuse of investigations and prosecutions for political purposes.
“We want impartial and unbiased investigations,” Cindrich said. “When you lose that, it creates a danger to all of us.”
Kaufman agreed.
“The fear would be the administration would seek to bring prosecutions for political purposes, and that’s anathema to career DOJ attorneys.”
Oath to the Constitution
Although both Kaufman and Cessar led the U.S. attorney’s office in Pittsburgh for periods of time, the bulk of their work came as line prosecutors handling complex cases.
They both are adamant that it is those lawyers who serve as a guardrail to ensure local offices follow the mission.
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“Career attorneys feel strongly about working with integrity and working to protect the safety of the community,” Kaufman said.
“We follow our orders unless they’re illegal or unethical, and then we have an obligation to our oath to the Constitution to say, ‘We’re not going to do it,’” Cessar said. “It’s that simple.”
He believes that the Department of Justice manual, as well as the Rules of Professional Conduct that govern attorneys, will keep the organization in line.
“Hopefully, these will guide us through the next four years,” Cessar said.
Kaufman said the Gaetz nomination is likely causing anxiety among the agency’s career lawyers.
“Most DOJ attorneys who want to stay are in a wait-and-see attitude at this point.”
But Litman said a mass exodus has started.
“There’s already been way more running for the hills than I’ve ever seen,” he said. “Being in a place with a boss who has contempt for your professional mission … life is too short.”