Trump gets special master, federal judge 'abused' staff, DOJ official jumps to Morrison and Foerster, and Pinterest hires a new top lawyer
Reuters Legal
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?? Good morning from the Legal File! U.S. District Judge Raymond Dearie will be the special master reviewing White House documents seized from Mar-a-Lago. A probe has found that a New Mexico federal magistrate judge subjected employees to abuse. The DOJ's anti-money laundering chief joins Morrison and Foerster. And Pinterest hires a new top lawyer from Discover. Let's get into it:
Senior U.S. District Judge Raymond Dearie will be the special master reviewing White House documents seized from Mar-a-Lago.
Dearie, 78, is tasked with deciding whether any of the documents are privileged - either due to attorney-client confidentiality or through a legal principle called executive privilege - and should be off limits to federal investigators.
Trump is under investigation by the Justice Department for retaining government records - some of which were marked as highly classified, including "top secret" - at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach after leaving office in January 2021.
Dearie served as U.S. attorney in Brooklyn before being appointed to the federal bench there by Republican President Ronald Reagan in 1986 and was chief judge of that court from 2007 to 2011. He assumed senior status - a sort of semi-retirement with a reduced case load - in 2011, a role he continues to serve.
Federal judges in New Mexico voted not to reappoint a magistrate judge after an internal probe found she created an abusive and hostile work environment by subjecting employees to outbursts, "derogatory" statements, and frequent threats of being fired.
The inquiry into former U.S. Magistrate Judge Carmen Garza was detailed in a rare public order on Wednesday by the 10th Circuit Judicial Council, which had received a misconduct complaint about the judge.
The public order appeared to mark the first known instance of the federal judiciary addressing misconduct under policies adopted in 2019 in the wake of the #MeToo movement to explicitly prohibit abusive conduct in the workplace.
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Deborah Connor, a senior anti-money laundering official at the U.S. Department of Justice, has joined Morrison & Foerster as a Washington, D.C.-based partner, the law firm said.
Connor was most recently chief of the money laundering and asset recovery section. She oversaw matters, including prosecutions against financial institutions for Bank Secrecy Act, economic sanctions violations, and investigations involving digital currency and financial technology companies.
Connor joins Morrison & Foerster's investigations and white-collar defense group, which has added a batch of other former Justice Department officials and federal prosecutors in the past year and a half.
Pinterest said Wanji Walcott will join the digital pin-board firm as chief legal officer from Discover Financial Services, where she also held the top legal role.
Walcott will replace Christine Flores, who has served as general counsel since 2017. The company said she will oversee Pinterest's legal, compliance, and public policy teams.
Walcott, who was chief legal officer and general counsel at Discover and spent more than three years at the financial services company, previously held senior legal roles at PayPal Holdings and American Express.
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