Massachusetts U.S. Attorney Rachael S. Rollins misused her office to “boost” a political ally, violated ethics rules to get free Boston Celtics tickets and lied under oath to investigators, the Justice Department’s inspector general said Wednesday.
The 161-page report — one of the most extraordinary public allegations of a sitting federal prosecutor in recent memory — was released a day after Ms. Rollins announced that he would resign at the end of this week, acknowledging that he had become a harmful “distraction” in one of the department’s most important offices.
Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz opened an investigation into Ms. Rollins last year after a report was released that she had attended a Democratic National Committee fundraiser in July 2022 led by first lady Jill Biden .
His team determined that these actions violated anti-campaign policies and laws. But the investigation quickly expanded to encompass a startling array of apparent misconduct, including efforts to discredit a political rival and her acceptance of flights and a resort stay that were paid for by a sports and entertainment company, he said.
The department’s internal oversight “received multiple additional allegations about Rollins,” the inspector general’s staff wrote in the report. They included allegations of abuse of position, possible violations of gift rules and other department policies, according to the report.
The US Office of Special Counsel, another federal watchdog agency, published his own findings about Ms. Rollins shortly after the inspector general’s report came out, which concluded he had violated the Hatch Act, which restricts political activity by federal officials.
In a letter to President Biden, Henry Kerner, the special counsel, described his violations as “one of the most egregious transgressions” he had ever investigated.
Ms. Rollins will be replaced by Joshua S. Levy, her deputy, until the White House names her successor, according to a senior Justice Department official.
Ms. Rollins departs as her office tackles one of the most high-profile cases in recent years: the investigation into the leak of classified national security documents by Airman Jack Teixeira, a 21-year-old Air National Guardsman assigned to a wing of intelligence at a base in Cape Cod, Massachusetts.
Horowitz said he was most alarmed by the evidence that Ms. Rollins had tipped off a Boston Herald reporter about a possible Justice Department investigation into one of the candidates then running to succeed her as Suffolk County District Attorney, Kevin R. Hayden, to benefit a friend and ally, Ricardo Arroyo.
Investigators said Ms. Rollins “brought her efforts to advance Arroyo’s candidacy” to her job as the top federal law enforcement officer in Boston.
Initially, he tried to persuade a senior aide to issue a letter suggesting that the department investigate Mr. Hayden for public corruption. When the person refused, he contacted the newspaper in an unsuccessful effort to make his claims public before the election, investigators found.
Mr. Hayden defeated Mr. Arroyo in the primary in September and won the general election in November. The Herald published a story about a possible investigation three days after the primary, citing an unnamed “federal law enforcement source.” He has never been charged with a crime.
Ms. Rollins appears to have been motivated, in part, by revenge after a damaging report in The Boston Globe about a sexual abuse allegation against Mr. Arroyo as a teenager. He believed it had been leaked by Mr. Hayden, and made an election night promise to Mr. Arroyo that Mr. Hayden “will rue the day he did this to her,” according to the inspector general.
He initially denied being the source in a Dec. 6 interview with Mr. Horowitz, but admitted she was the officer referred to in the story when she was interviewed again soon after.
At the end of December, Mr. Horowitz informed the department’s prosecutors that Ms. Rollins had misled his investigators for possible prosecution. They declined to press charges, he said.
A spokeswoman for Attorney General Merrick B. Garland had no comment.
A lawyer for Ms. Rollins downplayed the report. He said the violations of federal laws and regulations described by investigators amounted to little more than “failures of process” and that she simply had not adjusted to the different expectations that came with the role of a federal official.
“The central truth is that Ms. Rollins went from being an elected official with virtually no restrictions on her activities to the highly regulated environment of the United States Attorney’s office,” said her attorney, Michael R. Bromwich, who was the inspector general of the Department of Justice. from 1994 to 1999.
He suggested he could have done more to refute Mr. Horowitz, however, “believed it was best to resign and end the matter before it overwhelms his office and the DOJ.”
But investigators, who reviewed dozens of text messages and emails from Ms. Rollins to associates, came to a different conclusion: that she had repeatedly blurred the lines between government duties and her grievances, private life or goals politicians
In early 2022, for example, Ms. Rollins contacted the Celtics about 30 free tickets for members of a local youth basketball league, and recruited an employee in the United States attorney’s office to help organize logistics, a charitable effort that nevertheless violated the federal government. ethical guidelines.
He then compounded the problem by accepting an offer from a Celtics employee for a pair of game tickets. Those seats, in a check-in area with a face value of $350 each, were far better than those given to children, located in the TD Garden rafters and valued at $80 or $85 each.
“Amazing!” he wrote after a Celtics employee emailed him the tickets. “Thanks!!!”
Ms. Rollins also accepted more than $2,000 in travel, lodging and entertainment from a California-based sports and entertainment company that hosted her for a two-day summit she attended in Ojai, California. in June
Ms. Rollins told investigators that he participated in a panel discussion focused on civil rights and civil engagement, and that he thought he did not need to seek ethics approval for the trip because he had a pre-existing relationship with the event’s organizers.
But under federal regulations, he had to get approval from the department’s headquarters in Washington before accepting the invitation, investigators said.
In January, Ms. Rollins returned $2,307.66 to the company after being questioned by investigators. He is currently seeking reimbursement from the Justice Department, claiming the trip was official travel, according to the report.
