Massachusetts U.S. Attorney Rachael Rollins is planning to resign after a lengthy investigation by the Department of Justice into her alleged misconduct found that she unethically attended a partisan Biden fundraiser last summer and “falsely testified under oath” about leaking “sensitive DOJ” information to the press in an effort to help a Democrat win elected office.
Details of Rollins’ misconduct – highlighted in the report released Wednesday by DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s office – showed that Rollins attempted to swing an election by assisting “Ricardo Arroyo with his Democratic primary campaign for Suffolk D.A.”
Rollins, according to the report, went so far as to offer Arroyo advice on how to handle the sexual assault allegations levied against him during his campaign and also provided media outlets with “negative information” about his challenger, Kevin Hayden.
“Rollins’s efforts to advance Arroyo’s candidacy included providing negative information about Hayden to The Boston Globe and suggesting where the Globe could look to find more information,” the report stated. “The evidence demonstrated that at a critical stage of the primary race, Rollins brought her efforts to advance Arroyo’s candidacy to the MA USAO, when she used her position as U.S. Attorney, and information available to her as U.S. Attorney, in an ultimately unsuccessful effort to create the impression publicly, before the primary election, that DOJ was or would be investigating Hayden for public corruption.”
The Justice Department also concluded that Rollins “falsely testified under oath during her OIG interview when she denied that she was the federal law enforcement source that provided nonpublic, sensitive DOJ information to the Herald reporter about a possible Hayden criminal investigation.”
Rollins later admitted to being the source after she “produced relevant text messages, which definitively showed that Rollins had indeed been a source for the reporter and had disclosed to him the internal DOJ recusal memorandum quoted in the story,” the report said.
In addition to providing the press with sensitive information about Arroyo’s challenger, Rollins helped Arroyo last summer with a response to sexual assault allegations he faced on the campaign trail.
The report also found that Rollins, despite ethics advice not to, attended a fundraiser for President Biden last summer that included an appearance by first lady Jill Biden.
The DOJ concluded that Rollins “attended a partisan political fundraiser without approval from the Deputy Attorney General, or her designee, as required by Department policy, and her attendance was contrary to the ethics advice she received before the event that gave permission for Rollins to meet and greet with Dr. Biden separately from the fundraiser but did not include approval from the Deputy Attorney General, or her designee, to attend the fundraiser itself.”