Maryland U.S. Attorney Rod Rosenstein announced yesterday the creation of an asset forfeiture and money laundering section for his office. Read the news release here.

Rod Rosenstein (DOJ)

The new section will work with state and local authorities to handle federal, civil and criminal forfeitures and provide guidance on money laundering and other cases involving financial crimes.

Rosenstein — a Bush holdover supported by Maryland Democratic Sens. Barbara Mikulski and Ben Cardin — told the Maryland Daily Record that he has “beefed up” his office’s work on these crimes because the Justice Department has encouraged the U.S. Attorneys to “follow the money” in mortgage fraud and other financial criminal cases.

“It takes a certain amount of expertise to trace that money and be familiar with the asset forfeiture provisions to be able to seize that money,” Rosenstein told the newspaper.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Stefan Cassella will lead the unit. He was sworn in yesterday after serving in the Justice Department Criminal Division as assistant chief of the asset forfeiture and money laundering Section from 1994 to 2002 and the deputy chief from 2002 to 2007.

He will oversee Assistant U.S. Attorney Richard Kay, a 19-year veteran of the office specializing in asset forfeiture, and Assistant U.S. Attorney Christen Sproule, who started at the office in January to assist with asset forfeiture and restitution matters. The section will also include supervisory paralegal LaTonia Kelly and paralegal specialist Naquita Ervin.

Congress sent President Obama a $105.9 billion wartime spending bill yesterday that included $45 million for the Justice Department to combat mortgage fraud.

The money approved yesterday is the latest in a series of steps taken by Congress this year to fight mortgage fraud. Obama signed into law this March the Omnibus Appropriations Act, which gave the FBI $10 million to hire more agents for mortgage fraud investigations. Last month, the president signed into law the Fraud and Recovery Act, which provided the Justice Department with $245 million to employ more prosecutors and agents to handle fraud cases.

“Today Congress has taken another big step forward by approving these funds,” Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.), chair of the Senate Appropriations Commerce, Justice and science subcommittee, said in a statement yesterday. “No more scamming and scheming. No more preying on hardworking American families with shady lending practices. If you break the law, you will suffer the consequences.”

The wartime spending bill passed yesterday was missing a few key provisions, however. For weeks, Congress fought over funding for closing Guantanamo Bay detention facility and a ban on U.S. government photos that show prisoner abuse. The bill that went to Obama’s desk yesterday did not provide funds for shuttering Guantanamo until the president creates a plan for transferring the detainees. It also did not have a ban on releasing abuse pictures after the Senate passed legislation prohibiting the public release of the photos.

The Associated Press article on the approval of the wartime spending bill is here.

U.S. Attorney of Maryland Rod Rosenstein, a Bush holdover, has lost his best prosecutors to Main Justice, reports the Washington Post.

The new deputy assistant attorney general for the criminal division Jason Weinstein had previously been working in the federal prosecutor’s Baltimore office as the chief of violent crimes.  Another loss has been Mythili Raman, who left her job as Rosenstein’s appellate chief to become chief of staff for Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division Lanny Breuer.  Raman’s successor is Michael Leotta, a prosecutor in the fraud and corruption unit in Baltimore; Leotta is one of the prosecutors in the case of former lobbyist and John Abramoff associate Kevin Ring.  The final loss was James Trusty, now deputy chief of the national gang unit at Main Justice.  Trusty had previously been the deputy chief of Rosenstein’s Greenbelt office and overseen the prosecution of the MS-13 gang and has been succeeded by Michael Pauzé, who was a prosecutor in the case of former Prince George’s schools chief Andre Hornsby.

But it seems that while Rosenstein’s best prosecutors have left, Rosenstein will stay, for good.

In the process of tapping members of Rosenstein’s staff to move up to Main Justice, Breuer expressed his confidence in Rosenstein, “Rod has cultivated an incredible roster of attorneys, and, knowing Rod, I expect he’ll continue to do just that.”

Most importantly, Maryland’s Democratic Senators Barbara Mikulski and Benjamin Cardin have expressed support for Rosenstein in his current post.  But they did not support the 2007 nomination of Rosenstein for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit.  The Senators have finally found someone to fill the seat, which has been vacant for almost nine years, Andre Davis.  Davis has already been nominated by President Obama, but as we reported last week, his nomination has been delayed for the time being.

Thomas Perez said at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing this afternoon that he would keep politics out of his decisions if he is confirmed to lead the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division.

Democrats at the hearing criticized the Civil Rights Division for the politically-motivated hiring of career prosecutors that was orchestrated by Bradley Schlozman, a former acting head of the Civil Rights Division in the Bush administration. Perez, who held various positions within the Civil Rights Division in the 1990s, was praised by the Democrats at the hearing including Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.), who said Perez will help Attorney General Eric Holder “restore and reinvigorate the Justice Department.”

Thomas Perez, President Obama's pick to lead the DOJ Civil Rights Division, testified at a hearing on his nomination today.

“If confirmed, one of my primary goals will be to ensure that decision making is depoliticized,” Perez said. “I will work…to restore trust between the career attorneys and the political leadership.”

Perez, however, is not immune from criticism. An anti-gambling group is against his nomination because of a letter he wrote in his current job as the secretary of the Maryland Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation that endorses the legalization of slot machine gambling, The Maryland Gazette reports.

“It gets down to the question if you’re going to be the leading advocate for civil rights in America, how does that square with your role as an advocate for state-sponsored predatory gambling,” Stop Slots Maryland executive director Les Bernal told The Gazette.

While the focus of the standing-room-only hearing was on Perez and circuit court nominees Andre Davis and David Hamilton, Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) did point out at the beginning of the hearing that Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) was the ranking member at today’s hearing, not Sen. Arlen Specter (Pa.), who said yesterday that he will caucus with the Democrats.

A spokesperson for Senate Judiciary Committee Republicans did not immediately respond to questions regarding which senator is the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

We previously reported that Specter, who was a no show at today’s hearing, could be in line to chair a new Judiciary subcommittee. Senate Judiciary Committee spokesperson Erica Chabot declined to comment on the report.