Guys in Suits: on a Mission
OK, they may look like accountants, but this team of government lawyers is a key cog in the war on terror
Just a few weeks ago, Kenneth Wainstein, the Justice Department's new national security chief, received a book in the mail, a memoir titled Secrets. Its author, Daniel Ellsberg-the former Defense Department analyst who was prosecuted for leaking the Pentagon Papers to the New York Times 36 years ago-sent the book to Wainstein after a spirited exchange with him during a recent panel discussion about prosecuting leakers. "Dear Ken," Ellsberg inscribed in the book, "I shared your revulsion against all leaks until some years ago."
Prosecuting those who leak classified information is just a small part of Wainstein's controversial portfolio. As the assistant attorney general for the National Security Division, created last summer, Wainstein has been handed most of the department's hot-potato issues and has at his disposal some of the government's most secret, powerful, and criticized investigative tools. Just recently, President Bush decided not to reauthorize the National Security Agency's controversial warrantless electronic surveillance program but to place it under a special court-the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court-that oversees government surveillance in intelligence investigations. The revamped program will now be under Wainstein's purview. Look for civil-liberties groups and the new Democratic majority in Congress to keep a close eye on his every move.
The career federal prosecutor seems unfazed by the prospect of such scrutiny. In an interview, Wainstein, 45, said that he is used to making difficult decisions based on the facts and the law. "But with national security being a hot political issue, it's natural for people to scrutinize our big prosecution decisions through the prism of politics," says Wainstein. "Because it's important that we maintain public confidence, we're careful to both make and to announce our decisions in an apolitical way."
Sounds good. But in coming months, Wainstein, a Senate-confirmed presidential appointee, will have to contend with a host of lingering perception problems. "This administration has politicized almost every part of the Justice Department," says Kate Martin, director of the Center for National Security Studies, a civil-liberties group. "We need congressional oversight to prevent this key division from being similarly politicized."
If anyone can serve as an apolitical gatekeeper for the department's professional ranks, friends and colleagues say, it's Wainstein. He was exposed to the trapdoor world of national security issues early in life, thanks to his parents, who both spent their careers in military intelligence. His dad, Leonard, worked for a nonprofit group that advised the Joint Chiefs of Staff. His mother, Eleanor, who died last December, wrote a number of prescient studies for the Rand Corp. in the 1970s on terrorism, Islamic fundamentalism, and corporate kidnappings. "There was a lot of talk about terrorism back then," says Wainstein. "It's just different predators [today]."
Gorilla. A former U.S. attorney for Washington, D.C., Wainstein spent most of his career putting drug dealers, murderers, and crooked politicians behind bars. He later picked up his national security credentials at the FBI, where he served as general counsel and chief of staff to Director Robert Mueller. "You need somebody who can balance the intelligence imperatives with the law-enforcement imperatives," says Chuck Rosenberg, a U.S. attorney in Virginia. "Sometimes they are in conflict, and you need someone to sort that out."
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