Uncategorized Archive

Josh Rosenstein Discusses How the Justice Department Could Be Putting Lobbyists in Harms Way

Is the Justice Department putting foreign lobbyists in harms way? Partner Josh Rosenstein shares this thoughts with Foreign Lobby.

The public disclosure of residential addresses, particularly where there are legitimate, well-founded safety concerns, doesn’t seem to serve any legitimate public policy ends. And in a hyper-partisan age where doxing leads to violence, it may well put registrants at risk.

The Justice Department has the tools to address this without violating the spirit of the law. It had done so in the past, in this area as well as in less significant ones, and it needs to be able to administer the law in ways that don’t lead to absurd or even dangerous results.

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Rosenstein Shares Thoughts on $2 Million Myanmar Lobbying Contract

Josh Rosenstein expresses his concerns surrounding the $2 million Myamar lobbying contract, that is under legal scrutiny.

“[The] bigger question for me is … why this arrangement isn’t a prohibited contingent fee, if the lobbying includes efforts to get them off the sanctions list,” said Joshua Rosenstein, a lobbying expert with Sandler Reiff. “The only way to be paid would be if the lobbying were successful, in that case.”

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Dara Lindenbaum Elected Member of Sandler Reiff

Sandler Reiff Lamb Rosenstein & Birkenstock P.C. (Sandler Reiff), the pre-eminent political law boutique  law firm in Washington, D.C., is pleased to announce the promotion of Dara Lindenbaum to the position of Member of the Firm. Sandler Reiff advises clients involved in the business of politics, including political committees, party committees, non-profit organizations, advocacy groups, candidates and officeholders, communications, consulting, and government relations firms, and non-profits, as well as major contributors to political and non-profit groups. As Founding Member Joe Sandler noted, “We are excited to announce this promotion, which reflects Dara’s outstanding legal work, her contribution to our Firm, and her prominence in the field of political law.”

Dara advises her clients on compliance with state and federal campaign finance laws and serves as outside counsel to a number of political organizations. She represents candidates and ballot measures across the country in recounts, canvasses, petition/ballot access challenges and other electoral disputes. She also assists clients with general business matters including corporate governance and employment issues.

While at Sandler Reiff, Dara served as General Counsel to Stacey Abrams’ campaign for Governor of Georgia in 2018 and Deputy General Counsel to Martin O’Malley’s campaign for President in the 2016 election cycle. Prior to joining Sandler Reiff, Dara was an associate in the voting rights project at the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. Dara graduated from the George Washington University Law School and is a member of the bars of Maryland, the District of Columbia, and Georgia. Dara was named a 2019 and 2020 Rising Star in the District of Columbia edition of Super Lawyers.

Josh Rosenstein Talks Trump Pardons and How it Undercuts FARA Enforcement

Partner Josh Rosenstein shares his thoughts on Trump’s pardons.

At first glance these pardons, while perhaps unseemly, appear to amount to little more than political expedience: The president rewarding loyal supporters whom he viewed as having been targeted by Special Counsel Robert Mueller‘s probe into Russian influence in the 2016 election. These include van der Zwaan, who has no known ties to the Trump administration.

But buried in the pardons issued in December was that of former Republican Rep. Mark Siljander(R-Mich.). Siljander pled guilty in 2010 for serving as an unregistered agent for the Islamic American Relief Agency (IARA), in one of the rare early 2000s examples of criminal FARA enforcement. The US government at the time had designated the relief agency as a terrorist organization and accused it of funneling more than $1 million to Iraq, in violation of US sanctions .When these pardons are viewed together, a stark reality emerges. In the course of a few months, the president’s pardons wiped clean the records of some of the most prominent foreign influence actors in recent history, and undid much of the last decade’s successful FARA enforcement activity.

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Josh Rosenstein Quoted in POLITICO

Partner Josh Rosenstein shares his opinion on the DOJ’s second known LDA investigation.

But the disclosure of any investigation at all is notable and, taken together with charges brought against disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff earlier this summer, could signal that DOJ is “actively now looking into potential LDA violations,” said Josh Rosenstein, a lawyer with Sandler Reiff Lamb Rosenstein & Birkenstock who advises clients on lobbying laws. That, along with prosecutions in recent years targeting high-profile figures’ failure to register as foreign agents, “very well may reveal a trend in DOJ’s renewed focus broadly on enforcing laws concerning advocacy.”

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Joe Birkenstock Quoted in POLITICO

Partner Joe Birkenstock comments on court battles leading up to the 2020 election.

“They’re not going to be shutting down in two, six, eight months,” said Joe Birkenstock, who previously served as chief counsel of the Democratic National Committee, of the Trump campaign“Think of it in terms of years.”

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Rosenstein Shares Thoughts on Trump Fundraiser Elliott Broidy

Partner Josh Rosenstein comments on controversial Trump fundraiser Elliot Broidy, as he is charged for lobbying conspiracy.

“These allegations read almost like a textbook FARA violation,” Joshua Rosenstein, a lawyer at Sandler Reiff Lamb Rosenstein and Birkenstock who specializes in the Foreign Agents Registration Act, tells Rolling Stone. “Based on what DOJ laid out, Broidy and his co-conspirators appear to have flouted this crucial national security statute with sheer impunity, actively seeking to shield their lobbying of the White House and their illegal payments from public view. The question remains whether the President may end up intervening in this process in behalf of another old friend of his.”

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Partner Josh Rosenstein Comments on Al Jazeera’s Case Against Order to Register as a Foreign Agent

Josh Rosenstein shares his thoughts on Al Jazeera’s case against an order to register as a foreign agent.

“I think it would be extraordinarily difficult to challenge DOJ’s decision on the grounds that there was political influence somewhere along the line, by enemies of this foreign regime,” said Josh Rosenstein, a government ethics lawyer at Sandler Reiff Lamb Rosenstein and Birkenstock . “Lobbyists and foreign agents make (subject to FEC regulations) political contributions all the time. They lobby for certain outcomes. The process may be unseemly, but it doesn’t make the resultant decision unlawful. If there were allegations of actual bribery involved, then perhaps it would be a stronger basis to challenge the decision.”

“In order to pull this off,” Rosenstein added, “the outlet would likely have to sue DOJ directly … for a declaratory judgment that DOJ’s conclusion was incorrect and that the outlet is exempt from registration or otherwise not subject to FARA. That’s going to be a fact-specific inquiry for the court, and will turn on the court’s interpretation of the same evidence that one presumes DOJ had reviewed prior to issuing the determination notice:  the level of any editorial control by any foreign government; the corporate ownership structure of the outlet; whether there’s any policy that the outlet’s viewpoint has to match any policies of a foreign country, and so on.”

He said Al Jazeera could also also informally appeal internally to the Attorney General’s office asking the department to reconsider, since FARA permits the AG to issue his own exemptions in certain cases.

“That’s something that’s often done, but it’s usually done prior to a public determination letter being released,” Rosenstein said. “One can surmise that the AG’s office was already aware of this and declined to hold it up.”

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Josh Rosenstein Quoted in ABC News Article

Partner Josh Rosenstein shares his thoughts with ABC News, on the legal scrutiny Rudy Giuliani has been receiving.

Joshua Rosenstein, a government ethics lawyer at Sandler Reiff Lamb Rosenstein and Birkenstock, told ABC News that FARA requirements “may well have been triggered” if Giuliani was acting in a certain capacity in his work with Derkach.

“If Giuliani was acting in any way at the specific request of, or under the direction/control/supervision of, the politicians with regard to any political activity in the U.S., then he would likely have to register,” Rosenstein said.

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