Kathleen Hamann Quoted in Global Investigations Review: Cuts to DOJ’s International Affairs Office Would Slow Cases “Across the Board”

Excerpted from the March 31, 2025 Global Investigations Review

The Trump administration has proposed cuts to a DOJ office that helps prosecutors extradite defendants and extract foreign evidence. Eliminating or reassigning personnel, "could bog down all sorts of cross-border cases.”

According to former prosecutors, “paring down the perennially overstretched Office of International Affairs (OIA) would slow enforcement at a time when cases – whether tied to financial crime or violent crime – increasingly have a foreign nexus. The office handles requests to extradite foreign defendants – from corrupt executives to high-profile drug lords – and to secure foreign evidence and depositions, also known as mutual legal assistance requests.”

Pierce Atwood litigation attorney Kathleen Hamann, a former FCPA Unit prosecutor and an internationally recognized authority in the field of white-collar enforcement stated, “Mutual legal assistance is already time-consuming. The office had trouble keeping up with the work as it was.  Prosecuting transnational financial crime – whether it involves FCPA or money laundering violations – requires making complicated mutual legal assistance and extradition requests.” 

“When a mutual legal assistance issue arises, she added, “OIA makes sure the problem gets raised at higher levels. For example, if the US attorney general is set to meet with a foreign counterpart, OIA may add a stalled MLAT request to the meeting agenda.

“Removing Bruce Swartz from OIA already dealt a blow to the office and its prosecutors by removing a deeply experienced diplomat with close relationships to foreign enforcement authorities,” Kate said. Swartz is a DOJ veteran and long-time OIA director, who was reassigned in January. Swartz, “played a crucial role in extraditing the notorious Mexican drug lord El Chapo Guzman.”

“It's more challenging to operate in this sphere of foreign relations, which is highly specialized, if you don't have the people to not just manage the relationships and try and resolve issues, but to escalate them and to make sure that transnational law enforcement cooperation is part of the bilateral dialogue,” Kate said, adding, “Cuts to OIA also seem to go against the Trump administration’s stated priority of cracking down on drug cartels and organized crime. It’s going to hurt mutual legal assistance and extradition across the board.”

Kate also said, “it’s possible that the remaining personnel at OIA could be redirected to cases more closely aligned with the Trump administration’s priorities, such as extraditing the leaders of organized crime groups or obtaining evidence in drug-related cases.”

The complete article by Gaspard Le Dem can be found in the March 31, 2025 edition of Global Investigations Review.