Rachel Paulose

Rachel Kunjummen Paulose (born March 12, 1973, Kerala, India), the current U.S. Attorney for the District of Minnesota. She is the first Indian American woman, the youngest attorney, and the first woman in Minnesota to hold this post.

Early life

Paulose was born to Lucy Paulose, a CEO of an electronics company, and Joseph Paulose, a school administrator. Her maternal grandparents Daniel and Sara Kujummen immigrated to the U.S. from Kerala in the 1960s. Rachel moved to the U.S. a few months after her birth and grew up in Ohio. She moved to Minnesota at the age of 17.

In 1994, she earned a B.A. (summa cum laude) from the University of Minnesota where she was Phi Beta Kappa and a Truman Scholar. She earned her J.D. from the Yale Law School, where she was a Coker Fellow , Editor of the Yale Journal of Law & Feminism, Board Member of the Asian American Students' Association and the Yale Law Christian Fellowship .

Career

Paulose's legal career began in 1997 when she worked as a law clerk under Judge James B. Loken of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. Her cases included violent crime, illegal drugs, economic crimes, and enforcement of civil rights. She then worked as a trial attorney in the Attorney General's Honors Program from 1998 to 1999. From 1999 until 2002, she worked as an Assistant United States Attorney.

She worked in private practice after 2002 with the Williams & Connolly law firm in Washington D.C until 2003, where her work focused on health care litigation and business. She was with the Dorsey & Whitney law firm in Minneapolis from 2003 until December, 2005.[1]

In January 2006, Paulose returned to the Justice Department where she served briefly as Senior Counsel to Acting Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty and she was the Department’s Special Counsel for Health Care Fraud. She was a special assistant to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

The following month, on February 17th, [2], she was appointed to serve as acting US Attorney for the District of Minnesota since the incumbent U. S. Attorney Thomas Heffelfinger had announced his resignation effective February 28th.

She was confirmed as U.S. Attorney on Dec 9, 2006 [3].

Nomination and Confirmation

While serving as acting U.S. Attorney, Paulose was nominated by President George W. Bush on August 3, 2006 [4]. She was confirmed by the U.S. Senate in a voice vote on December 9 2006. [5]. This confirmation occured without a hearing or vote by the senate Judiciary committee, but was moved out of committee as part of a rarely used "discharge resoution." [6]

Memberships

• The Federalist Society.
• Yale Law School Fund.
• Federal Bar Association.
• National Asian Pacific American Bar Association (Minnesota Chapter).
• Harry S. Truman Scholarship Foundation.
• Trust for Public Land.

Views

Paulose has pledged to fight child pornographers, and has stated that they are becoming:

more graphic, more heinous, and frankly appalling.

She has spoken out against urban crime, stating that it threatens the American way of life, and noted that public officials should be held accountable for their actions.

Controversies

Swearing In

Paulose's investiture was held before 300 people in the atrium of the University of St. Thomas School of Law in Minneapolis, MN on Friday, March 9, 2007. Minneapolis television station later KSTP ran a piece likening it to a "coronation", showing a program that referred to a "processional" and included a U.S. Marine color guard, professional photographer and choir, which was shown singing. Swearing-in ceremonies for U.S. Attorneys are normally modest affairs held at the appropriate federal courthouse.

Paulose has dismissed the criticism, saying the program KSTP based its report on was inaccurate and had been discarded long before the ceremony, although the color guard and choir were indeed present. She also added that the cost to taxpayers was minimal since the school donated the use of their atrium (which they normally rent for $1,500) for the investiture ceremony at her request, she paid for everything and the total government cost of the ceremony was only $225, less than half the $500 she was budgeted. Representatives of government watchdog groups said the donation was inappropriate and that the money spent didn't include the cost to taxpayers of event planning by Paulose's employees.

"Problem" Press

While interviewing Paulose, a reporter with Kstp.com, a local ABC affiliate, stated that he was in possession of a six-page single-spaced document from the U.S. Attorney's office that "identified 'problem-reporters.'" Paulose only denied producing this list, but when asked whether she was "aware" of the list, she only replied that "I don't know why you are asking me this."

Staff Problems

Main article: 2006 Dismissal of U.S. Attorneys controversy

On April 5, 2007, three of her top administrators — First Assistant U.S. Attorney John Marti, second in command; civil division head Erika Monzangue and criminal division head James Lackner — voluntarily resigned those positions, reverting to simple assistant U.S. attorney status, reportedly in protest over Paulose's management style. According to the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, she was noted for dressing down underlings and quoting Bible verses on the job. They had had done so after a visit from a representative of the Executive Office of the U.S. Attorney in Washington. A later report said that the visit had been a last-ditch attempt by the Bush administration to persuade the three not to resign, and that a fourth official declined to comment on whether he had resigned or not. Paulose's defenders say that three simply had trouble changing their ways to accomodate an aggressive young prosecutor determined to bring the office more into line with the Attorney General's policies, and it has nothing to do with politics.

The St. Paul Pioneer Press later reported that the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee would probably be investigating the resignations.

External links

• United States Attorney's Office
• Paulose's donations totalling $1,500.00 to the campaign of Norm Coleman at Newsmeat.com