 This is Think Tech Hawaii. Community matters here. Okay, we're back. We're live. I'm Jay Fidel. This is still Think Tech on a given Monday. This is Life in the Law, one of our favorite programs, and today we're going to talk about the role of the United States attorney in everything, in our country, in our world. And the tagline for that is, representing the United States in all civil and criminal cases. There's a burden. When I was in the service, this Florence Nakakuni I'm talking to, she's a former United States attorney, and she's here to tell us about those things. When I was in the service doing court marshals, I would be asked to stand up and appear. And I would get up and say, this is something you did every day, I would get up and say, my name is Jay Fidel, and I represent the United States of America. It never failed to put a tingle down my spine every time I said that. Oh, absolutely. Yeah, yeah. How'd you get into that? Well, I was at the office for 32 years, the first 24 and a half as an assistant US attorney or an AUSA and the last seven and a half as the US attorney. And I got into it actually not planning to. In fact, my colleagues and fellow students at the law school will tell you that I was the absolute last person who would be doing litigation or criminal work of any kind. But when I was in Washington, DC, working for the Justice Department doing civil cases, there came a time when I wanted to come home. So I wrote to Dan Bent, the then US attorney, and he actually told me, I can't hire you. I need people who can pick up a criminal file and run with it, and you can't because you've never done a criminal case, you haven't done a trial, all of which is true. And I thought, OK, but he told me that he'd want to hire me in about 18 months. And I thought, right, but he did. So he waited for you to develop that experience. Well, not really, because I was at the Navy in the Navy Office of General Counsel's Office doing civil work, but he was building the office, so he needed more experienced people. And by waiting a year and a half or almost two years later, he had enough experienced people so he could pick up someone like me with zero criminal or trial experience. And it worked swell, didn't it? It did. I was lucky. You were born for it. So what does it take to be a United States attorney? I just need to ask you that. I keep thinking it's something around Elliott Ness. Oh, well, but it's more than just Elliott Ness, right? The US attorney has to, is in charge of all criminal cases in his or her jurisdiction, and also the civil cases in which the US is a party. But there's more to that, because it's a presidentially appointed position. And it's someone who is looked to by the community. So there are things that a US attorney should do and does, which is being in the community and working with the community to build bridges and to strengthen that bond between all of law enforcement and the community. Yeah, you know, to me, most people don't have much contact with you, United States attorney. And that's probably okay. That's good. It's okay. But you have to know what the US attorney is doing. Right. And you have to know how that relates to your life, even if indirect. So what should people think of when they think of the United States attorney? How the United States attorney is keeping our country stable and strong, the rule of law? I mean, what is the process? What is the daily grind that relates to me? Okay. So the vast majority of a US attorney's work is criminal. That's just how it is. So when I was a US attorney, roughly 80% of the resources of the officers were in criminal, the remainder in civil. And in the criminal work, you've got your cases referred from other federal agencies, sometimes state and locals. You wanted to make sure that once the case was assigned to an assistant US attorney to actually handle the case, that it was a coordinated and appropriate approach to how to get the case charged, if at all. Not every case that's referred to us gets charged. Because the United States attorney makes a decision as to whether to prosecute on a given case. Yes. This is very important and powerful. It is. And these cases are sometimes huge. We'll talk about some of them, high-profile cases that affect the security of the United States. This isn't burglary. This is other kinds of crimes, federal crimes in federal statutes. What kind of crimes are we talking about? Well, now that you mentioned the national security type cases, one case that went to trial while I was still a US attorney was the Gawadia case. So Noshiya Gawadia was a contractor to the federal government and he was charged with espionage. And Ken Sorensen of the office tried that case. It was a lengthy trial, several months, but justice was done. And Mr. Gawadia was sentenced to 30 years in prison. And most recently, Jay, he sued me, just me, not Ken Sorensen, because he didn't sign the letters. That's ridiculous. Yes. And so I was represented by an assistant US attorney in Denver because Mr. Gawadia is in prison in Denver. And the case just got dismissed last week. What was the nature of that suit? What could that be for? Well, it's an admin, it's of an administrative nature, a condition. And you want to relieve from you because you were the United States attorney. Yes. You know, I was going to be in the jury of that case. Were you really? I don't know if I've told you that before, yeah. No, I didn't know that. I don't think you would have made it. Judge Helen Gilmour, right. Judge Helen Gilmour was a judge and the system in the federal courts, I'm sure you're exquisitely familiar with this, is you get a call the night before to say whether you should come down or not come down. And the case was continued. Otherwise, I would have been down there, at least in the pool and potentially on the jury, although I agree with you. When they realized that I was a lawyer and all this, and former Coast Guard prosecutor, they would not and judge in the Coast Guard. I don't think they would have let me stay. When I was looking forward, I didn't care how long it took. I wanted to do my duty on that one. Three months. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It was a remarkable case, too, because Ken Sarnson, the prosecutor, and you were the assigning U.S. attorney at the time? No, actually the case had been in the office for so long that the case was already assigned to Ken when I became U.S. attorney. But I was in the office when the case came in and it was one of these cases that took a long time to develop. Yes. The complexity and all of the classified information. And after the case was done, and Guadillo was his name, was convicted and sentenced and incarcerated in Colorado or whatever, the Department of Justice gave permission to Ken Sarnson to come in our think tech show. Yes. I know that. And if you guys are interested in hearing what he had to say about being a prosecutor in that case, it's on our think tech channel and it is a fabulous interview. It is. It was that case inside out and to this day, I think, and certainly throughout the time I was there, he would be asked by the FBI to speak to groups about how that case was investigated because it was very difficult to say the least, but very interesting, fascinating stuff. You know, you had all the classified information, you had all the technical information that really you almost had to be an engineer to understand, but Ken ultimately did. Yeah. That was an incredible case. Too bad I couldn't serve on that. But the whole notion there was this was espionage going on right here in Hawaii. Right. It was an espionage case. I mean, I don't know if you have a lot of espionage cases in the district of Hawaii U.S. Attorney's office, do you? Not a lot, but there is at least one pending right now that's been in the news. It hasn't been in the news lately. There's a gang and enlisted men and I believe it's espionage charges, but I haven't heard about it or seen anything about it in some months. So the idea is that the cases the U.S. Attorney takes on the criminal side are really different than the cases you hear about in the state court. They are national in interest and they are always federal statutes and may I say a high level of crime because these are federal crimes. Right. And if it's in federal court typically it's multi defendant, multi jurisdiction, meaning multi states are involved and frequently these days defendants of every stripe use technology. You'd be surprised. Sure. So do the law enforcement, but the bad guys use it also. Yeah. Sure. For example, I know the Secret Service does a credit card fraud investigation. They do that. And they would refer a case to the U.S. Attorney in order to chase somebody who was doing credit card fraud and certainly that's in national or international, certainly interstate commerce or international crime. So that must be very technical, hard to prove, involves all kinds of internet issues, what not. Gee, you know what I would say, just thinking about it with you today, Philip, I would say this is going to increase going forward. It's going to be more complex. Yes. Yes. And I think more people are reporting these things and unfortunately a lot of times agents can't do anything when they're told, look, somebody I know got a call from somebody and they sent $10,000 to this number. Oh, you know it's hard to do anything with that. But we encourage people to report it because after a while the law enforcement agents assigned to the case might see a pattern. Something might come up later. So that's important. But we're so connected to each other. And yes, you're right. We're seeing more of it and I think we're going to see more of it. In terms of connection, I would imagine that the Office of the United States Attorney here in Hawaii is in regular contact with the Department of Justice in Washington, with other U.S. attorneys elsewhere and for that matter with state law enforcement. Yes. Yes. So, you know, information, data, what have you, policies, other cases that will interpret the statutes you're trying to enforce, all those things. You're not isolated in any way. No, not at all. In fact, I would have to say that most of the criminal cases that the U.S. Attorney's Office does will almost invariably involve a state or local agency and most times that would be the police department in the county in which the crime occurred. So, Honolulu County, Oahu being the largest county in terms of population, most of the cases occur here. And so, most of those cases also involve the Honolulu Police Department. Yeah. So, you know, I have a million questions. We'll never finish on time. What about the juries? A jury in the federal system, you know, that you are arguing in front of as the prosecutor, it's different than a state jury. Or is it the same? It's different in the sense that the pool comes from the entire state. But always, of course, the majority, the vast majority of the people on your jury will be people from Honolulu or from Oahu, rather. And the people from the neighbor islands have to commute. You know, the court has to end at a certain time, say 4.30, 4.15 because they need to take a plane to go home. What would you say, there's camera one over there, what would you say to somebody who gets a notice asking him or her who appear as a juror in a federal case? Please appear and do your civic duty. There are very few things that the government asks you to do, and one of them is to serve as a jury if you're a citizen. Yeah. And I strongly encourage that. You know, I have friends, family members who get summons and they ask me, how can I get out of this? You know, if I say that I know you, will I get out of this? That's not going to work. That's not going to work. You know, you should serve unless for some reason, you know, a peremptory is exercised and, you know, you're off. Or there's a cause. In my view, it's a more interesting possibility of a case anyway in the federal system. Yeah. Well, that's a system I'm most familiar with. Yeah. Yeah. We're going to take a short break. We'll come back and I'll talk about some of the civil practice in the United States Attorney's Office. And I also want to talk about how it's changed in this administration right now this year. Okay. We'll be right back with Flo Nakakuni. We have this crazy thing going on today. I was just walking by and all these DJs and producers are set up all around the city. I just walked by and I said, what's happening, guys? They told me they were making music. So we're doing it. We have so many questions from Florence Nakakuni, former United States Attorney for the District of Hawaii. So let's turn to civil for a minute. All right. You know, the thing is that in civil trials, the government doesn't necessarily appear in a lot of civil trials. Yes. Civil matters. Those disputes are with private citizens. But the United States Attorney represents the government, the federal government, and all agencies of the federal government. That opens all kinds of doors for issues relating to the claims or defenses of those agencies. How does it work? And what's the juxtaposition between the civil and criminal side of the practice? Okay, first, the juxtaposition is this. Most of our cases are criminal. And the rest are civil. And most of the cases that go to trial are the criminal cases. Very few civil cases go to trial, as you know. Sure. They get settled. Right. As in the state court. Right, exactly. But our civil cases are very important. And the civil cases that the office traditionally does would be those cases where we defend federal programs, if that's the appropriate thing to do, defend against unwarranted claims against the U.S. Treasury, but recommend payment of meritorious claims. And, of course, the bread and butter of what we do, which is to collect monies owed to the United States, whether it's the Internal Revenue Service, a student loan, or a SBA loan. Whether there's money involved, or I guess enforcement or rules that's not criminal. Correct. Non-criminal enforcement of rules. So, you know, this requires a certain amount of expertise, both the criminal side and, you know, in an unusual case, for example, why do you, why do you case this unusual? Right. Because, you know, technical things. But, you know, I wonder, do you have all the expertise right here on these shores, right here downtown in federal building? Or do you have to go somewhere else to get it? We can go somewhere else to get it. All the U.S. Attorney's offices are part of the Department of Justice. It's a huge department full of lawyers, more lawyers than anything else. And they're very good at getting information out, sharing information. There are a lot of databases online now for any attorney to go and look. And within the office, people are supervised pretty closely, especially in the beginning and certainly for the more significant cases, even the U.S. Attorney will want to get involved in what is going on so that there's no problem. And there is a lot of depth within the department. So I won't say that there's never a need to reinvent the wheel because Ken Sorenson surely didn't need to do that for that case. But in your certainly garden variety cases, even the more difficult ones, there are places and people that you can go to, or we can refer you to them. Yeah. So you have resources? Absolutely. Do you customarily put more than one lawyer on a given, you know, case or is it a kind of thing which you see in the state courts, you know, where the government is represented by just one person? Well, you know, the simplest garden variety, maybe drug cases, that might happen. But the trend for the past number of years has been to put at least two people on a case. And certainly if a case goes to trial, I always put two people on the case. It's just better that way. Yeah. It's always better than a practice. It's better quality of life, but it's also a better result than a quality of practice because you can bounce out that way. Right. So you are no longer the United States attorney. Boy, that must have been pretty spirited time for you to, oh, but I envy you that those years, you know, because you're really at the top of the legal pile when you do that. How did you feel about it while you were doing it? Loved it. You know, I felt I was doing something that was meaningful, public service. And I felt that I was doing that while being able to do the department of Justice's mandate, which was to do justice. And like you said earlier, while I was a U.S. attorney, I did not go to court to try cases, but as an AUSA, I went to court regularly and I was so proud to say Florence Nakakuni for the United States. Yeah. I like that. Nothing like that. Right. And you can't do that unless you do, in fact, represent the United States. Right. It doesn't work anyway. So you're not the U.S. attorney anymore. I know. I am. Well, I just got done last semester. Okay. Well, it's a good thing to do. And your career is different now. And, you know, at another time you would have been appointed again, right? It's political. You said before that there's a presidential decision. And doesn't that mean, honestly, doesn't that mean that if the president is appointing United States attorneys all over the country, it is a political decision. Oh, it certainly is. But, you know, when we're told to get out last March, the way it happened was sort of startling. But that was the he, the president has the absolute right to remove U.S. attorneys at will. So, you know, nobody can quibble with that. Does he appoint somebody new? He has not. But the attorney general has appointed Kenji Price as the U.S. attorney on an interim basis. So there's, it's a statutory appointment. Can't name you the statute right now. But it's good for 120 days or until the presidential appointee is named. And at this point, everybody believes and I believe that the nominee will be Kenji Price. He was at this table sitting in that chair. Shortly after he joined Carl Smith. Really? Yeah. No kidding. Yeah. But he can't be with Carl Smith anymore. Oh, no, he's not. He's a United States attorney. He certainly is. So, you know, how does it affect things when you have kind of an odd situation as we have in Washington right now and people are not being appointed on time? Is this happening in other districts too where there's sort of a gap in the appointment? This administration doesn't regularly fill gaps, for some reason. I haven't figured that out yet. How does that affect the quality of the office and justice? Well, you know, I can tell you that this grew around what the attorney general did was appointed, I believe, 15 or 17 interim U.S. attorneys. I have reason to believe that all of them, like Mr. Price, is expected to be the presidential nominee. Let's hold them up. I don't know. You let us down. But, I think there are things that an acting U.S. attorney cannot do because prior to Mr. Price being named, Eli Danocchi was the acting U.S. attorney because there's another statute that says when a U.S. attorney dies or resigns or is no longer capable of doing the work, the first assistant U.S. attorney becomes the acting. So that was the authority for Mr. Danocchi to be named acting. And he was acting for the past, what, nine months. But there are limitations on what someone who is acting can do. Someone who is interim, I believe, might have more authority. And so having someone there with that designated title, I think, brings more stability to an office. Sure. But it's not the kind of stability that you would prefer. You would want the full tilt if you put it. Of course. Right. And then the next three or four months. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, what does it mean, you know, to be a U.S. attorney? What I'm getting at is in my day, which is ages ago, it was really the top to be a United States attorney. And Kenji Price had the experience, he was in the Eastern District of New York as a star U.S. attorney there. And that defined his life, I think, as this has defined your life. If you are a U.S. attorney, it changes things. Mark Rectinwall is an assistant U.S. attorney. Oh, yes. And now CJ. I mean, there is a connection with the bench. But, you know, how does it change you and what is appealing about it and why do people want that job? You know, what is appealing about it is, given your position, you are the Chief Federal Law Enforcement Officer for your jurisdiction. And so, people look to you to set the tone for all kinds of things, relationships between law enforcement in the community and relationships between federal law enforcement and state and local law enforcement, which is really important these days. And also, just being in the community as a standard bearer for federal law enforcement, because, you know, I think what the U.S. attorney does in terms of conducting the office, the business of the office and administering justice here is something that the public looks to and then, based on that, they make decisions on what they think, you know, their perceptions of federal law enforcement and maybe law enforcement in general. There's a lot of discretion there. Yes, because the U.S. attorney is a person who decides whether or not a case gets charged. And that's way different than the state system because you are the Senior Federal Law Enforcement Officer in the district. Right. This is something. It is, in matters before this, in law enforcement matters before the state, you represent the district of Hawaii, the federal side. In matters, in law enforcement matters on the federal side, you represent Hawaii, the district of Hawaii and the interests of Hawaii and the issues that deal with us when you're before federal agencies or the Department of Justice in particular. So would you, would you advise a young graduate to try to make his way into the Department of Justice and what would you suggest for his career path or her career path? I would absolutely recommend that. It's a great career. And now, there's some offices, like the District of Hawaii, that historically has not hired people zero to one year out of law school because it's a pretty small office, right? There are larger offices where there's a revolving door of people who leave after five, six, seven years. I'm thinking of the Southern District of New York, probably Eastern District of New York, Los Angeles. Huge districts where there are a couple of hundred lawyers or more. And so it's easier to get into those bigger offices because there are more vacancies. And you get very good training. You get to meet others similarly situated, others hard at the same time as you. And for a young attorney, you'll be given a lot of responsibility and for someone of your relatively inexperienced time in life, you know, but you get to do a lot of things. And you're giving up to say, I represent the United States. Yes, yes. So is it a career if you don't become the United States Attorney for that district? I mean, can you have a full career that way also? Absolutely. In fact, that's how I thought my career would be. After a while, it was pretty clear that I was going to be there for a while. And many people have made the U.S. Attorney's Office a career and it's a great career because you're doing something that is good. You know, you're told to do the right thing. You do the right thing. Sometimes the right thing might be you dismiss a case or you don't bring a charge. So at the end of this administration, hoping, assuming for a moment, we get back to a Democratic administration at that time. And they called you and said, Florence, would you please go back? Would you resume the job? What would you say? I think you don't go back. You don't go back. You don't go back. So where do you go forward? Well, there are lots of things to do in this community. And we'll see what happens. I mean, there are so many things that are going to happen this year. And I'll have to decide where I want to put my energies. Yeah. But one thing is clear to me anyway is that maybe it was serendipitous, but you got that job. You held that job. You did well at that job. And it changed you. Even though, you know, but one thing I'll say, you're still a nice person, but, you know, that's not necessarily a test to the office. No. How did it change you? Well, it changed me this way. I realized that it was an important position and so that I had to do certain things. And I had to deal with different people in a consistent manner. And as U.S. attorney, you know, I always consider myself as having a number of constituencies, the people who work for you, the court, your so-called client agencies, the federal law enforcement agencies, the state and local agencies, the community at large, your fellow U.S. attorneys across the country and the Department of Justice. Two very different things. Yeah. Your colleagues and the department. Yeah. You could get to meet a lot of people that way. Oh, yes. It was a wonderful opportunity. And the thing I really like was letting other people know what the U.S. attorney's office did and showing up. You know, sometimes you just show up at these events and people appreciate that. Yeah, sure. It's a statement. You know, senior law enforcement official in the area and more than that, more than that, it's more than that in the sense that, you know, we talk about the relationship of the citizen and the government. And the federal government is the preemptive government. It's the one on top. And I mean, last time I looked. And really, my thought is that, you know, we should be searching for that connection, to make that connection better and better, to remain connected to the citizen and the government. And the U.S. attorney plays a major role in that connection. No, absolutely. In fact, I can tell you that when I was U.S. attorney, we're encouraged to go out into the community, community outreach, and just being part of the community. And we were told, look, it's not law enforcement and the community. You are law enforcement. You're part of the community. You have deep roots in your community. Every U.S. attorney does. Yeah. And so for us, when I was there, I worked very closely with the Honolulu Police Department, only because they're here on the island and they are the biggest state law enforcement agency here. And they're the ones that have a community policing component, officers who are assigned to do just that. And so, I worked a lot with them. But I have to tell you, Jay, the reason I was able to do that is because of something Steve Vom did almost 20 years ago. He got a federally-funded program called Weed and Seed here in Hawaii. So it's through that program, which has been around for almost 20 years now, that my predecessors and I, and I'm sure Mr. Price, have used as a vehicle to do our community outreach. Yeah. Because it's hard to do it just by yourself. So they're programs that emphasize crime prevention or personal safety issues. And they're events where these matters are discussed. And for example, just during the holidays, typically the U.S. attorney will get invited and attend a shop with a cop, shop with a capuna, that sort of thing, which is a nice thing to do that involves law enforcement. Yeah. At the same time though, I imagine now, in these days, post your service as U.S. attorney, when you read the paper about trials and federal crimes and cases, you see it differently. You see it through the eyes of the Department of Justice, as opposed to an ordinary person like me. You see it more clearly because you've been there. Right. So I'll go, okay, I think I know what's going to happen next. Right. Right. Well, thank you so much, Florence. It's great to have you down here. It's great to have this discussion with you. Hope you come back and talk to us maybe about some federal cases. Oh, that'd be great. Thanks, Jay. I enjoyed it. Thank you.