Senior DOJ Attorneys Back Out of ABA White-Collar Conference

Several senior Justice Department officials are last-minute scratches at a white-collar crime conference that leaders have regularly used to engage with the defense bar and reveal new policy initiatives.

The gathering, organized each year by the American Bar Association, begins March 5 in Miami and features a various panel discussions on trends in US enforcement. But most of the senior DOJ lawyers planning to appear are no longer on the schedule.

They include Glenn Leon, chief of the criminal division’s fraud section; Molly Moeser, head of a money laundering and asset forfeiture unit; David Fuhr, chief of the criminal division’s Foreign Corrupt Practices Act unit; and Michael Granston, a deputy assistant attorney general in the civil division’s commercial litigation branch.

The change in plans comes as President Donald Trump’s administration unleashes a rapid overhaul of the federal government, and as new DOJ leadership pushes to reorient its enforcement priorities. The department has also dealt with numerous firings and resignations.

Many DOJ officials began informing event organizers they were unable to attend after a Trump executive order on Feb. 26 froze government credit cards and established new protocols for travel, said Raymond Banoun, chair of the ABA’s National Institute on White Collar Crime.

The Justice Department didn’t immediately return a request for comment.

Department leadership has historically used the annual ABA events to announce new enforcement priorities in areas such as corporate crime and national security.

Former Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco in 2021 revealed an effort to pursue more individuals involved in white-collar crime. She then last year announced a new whistleblower program designed to reward tipsters sharing info on such areas as financial fraud and bribery.

“One of the important goals is to have a dialogue” between the government and white-collar defense counsel, said Banoun, who runs the boutique Banoun Law LCC and is a former partner at Cadwalader Wickersham & Taft.

“This is not a partisan group, we don’t have agendas,” he said. “We try to be very even-handed.”

Still, the ABA has become a target for some in the new administration. The Federal Trade Commission’s new chairman, Andrew Ferguson, last month barred political appointees from holding leadership roles or participating in events hosted by the ABA, which he labeled a group “guided by the principles of the Democrat Party and the priorities of Big Tech.”

The ABA has received no such communication from the Justice Department, Banoun said. Some local prosecutors in the Miami federal attorney’s office are still planning to attend. Dustin Davis, the healthcare fraud unit chief in the DOJ fraud section, remained on the schedule as of Monday afternoon.