The special investigative team was created in 2016 after the collapse of Corinthian Colleges, which catalyzed a flurry of complaints from students about predatory activities at for-profit schools. The institutions had been accused of widespread fraud that involved misrepresenting enrollment benefits, job placement rates and program offerings, which could leave students with huge debts and no degrees.
.. Under the Obama administration, the group was investigating not only DeVry, now known as Adtalem Global Education, but also Bridgepoint Education and Career Education Corporation, which also operate large for-profit schools.
.. The investigation into DeVry ground to a halt early last year. Later, in the summer, Ms. DeVos named Julian Schmoke, a former dean at DeVry, as the team’s new supervisor. Former employees of Bridgepoint and Career Education also work for Ms. DeVos, including Robert S. Eitel, her senior counselor, who worked for both, and Diane Auer Jones, a senior adviser on postsecondary education, who was with Career Education.
.. Last month, Congress confirmed the appointment of a lawyer who provided consulting services to Career Education, Carlos G. Muñiz, as the department’s general counsel. And Bridgepoint is a former client of Mercedes Schlapp, the director of strategic communications at the White House.
At Law Firms, Rainmakers Accused of Harassment Can Switch Jobs With Ease
.. It wasn’t the first time he had switched jobs following misconduct allegations. Morrison & Foerster hired him in 2003, soon after he paid a settlement to a female lawyer who accused him of sexual harassment at his longtime firm Stroock & Stroock & Lavan, a Stroock spokesman confirmed.
Law firms stand out in a corporate landscape where rainmakers accused of bad behavior often receive second and third chances, according to interviews with dozens of lawyers, legal recruiters, consultants and leaders at some of the country’s largest firms.
.. Firms’ sole assets are lawyers and their client relationships. As demand for work from the biggest law firms has softened since the financial crisis, poaching top partners has become one of few ways to boost revenue.
.. Many firms ask about prior complaints in new-hire questionnaires but do nothing to vet the answers, lawyers say. Firms rarely ask partners for references at their old firm, for fear of alerting competitors a star lawyer is in play.
.. “It can be particularly difficult to find out about misconduct in the legal industry,” said Christine Chung, a partner at New York-based law firm Selendy & Gay who has been involved with hiring lateral partners from big law firms for almost a decade. “If the person left the old firm for a bad reason, you may not figure it out.”
.. Women who worked with Mr. Tanenbaum in the past two decades at Stroock and Morrison & Foerster said in interviews he created an uncomfortable work environment by giving them impromptu shoulder massages, kissing them on the forehead and, according to some at Morrison & Foerster, asking them to “spin around” for him while commenting on their bodies and clothing
.. Mr. Tanenbaum’s spokesman said he denied giving massages and that he touched colleagues’ foreheads with his hand or forehead if they said they might have a fever. Mr. Tanenbaum asked female colleagues to turn around if he saw an “interesting detail on the side and back of a new dress” and complimented men and women on their appearance because clients expected them to be dressed appropriately, the spokesman said.
Attorneys for Michael Cohen, Trump’s Lawyer, Are Quitting His Case
Firm expected to cease representation after review of seized documents for client-attorney privilege
Mr. Cohen’s attorneys are reviewing more than 3.7 million documents federal prosecutors seized in an April raid of Mr. Cohen’s home, office and hotel room to designate which communications they see as protected by attorney-client privilege.. Stephen Ryan, Todd Harrison and others at the firm McDermott, Will & Emery LLP, which has been representing Mr. Cohen since June 2017, will cease doing so after that review is complete, the person said... Mr. Cohen doesn’t yet have a replacement law firm but is searching for a federal criminal lawyer in New York, people familiar with the matter said. Mr. Cohen wants to hire a lawyer with close ties to the Manhattan U.S. attorney’s office, the people said.
Pressure on Michael Cohen intensifies as Mueller stays focused on the Trump attorney
Cohen, who is now in a dispute with his attorneys about some of his legal bills, plans to seek new representation soon, the people said. He wants to find a New York lawyer more familiar with the U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan, they said.
.. In Washington, Mueller has been examining Cohen’s role in at least two episodes involving Russian interests, as The Post has previously reported.
One area of interest to the special counsel is negotiations Cohen undertook during the 2016 campaign to help the Trump Organization build a tower in Moscow, according to people familiar with the probe. Cohen brought Trump a letter of intent in October 2015 from a Russian developer to build a Moscow project. Later, he sent an email to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s chief spokesman seeking help to advance the stalled project. He has said he did not recall receiving a response.
.. Another area that Mueller’s team has explored is a proposal to end tensions in Ukraine, viewed by some as a plan that would benefit Russia
.. The meeting was organized by Felix Sater, a Trump business partner who had also worked to broker the deal to build a Trump Tower in Moscow during the presidential campaign.
The back-channel proposal offered a pathway for resolving the Ukrainian dispute that could have eventually led to the lifting of U.S. sanctions on Russia, a top goal of Putin.
.. Cohen told the news outlet that he took it to Washington and left it in Flynn’s office days before Flynn was fired.
.. But in interviews last year with The Post, Cohen called that account “fake news” and denied that he gave the proposal to Flynn or that he had ever said he had done so. Instead, Cohen told The Post he threw away the unopened envelope in a trash can at his New York apartment.
“I never looked at it,” Cohen said. “I never turned it over to anyone.”
.. Cohen also told The Post that Artemenko indicated to him that his peace initiative for Ukraine came with Russian support. “He said Russia was on board — the Russian government,”
.. Artemenko said he met repeatedly with U.S. officials, including members of Congress, to promote the proposal in Washington. The meetings, he said, he were set up by Curt Weldon, a Republican former congressman from Pennsylvania.
.. He said the nuclear power plan would have been a blow to Russia because it would have provided independent power to neighboring states that had been dependent on Russian energy sources. “Since this was an anti-Russia energy development proposal, it was no surprise to me that U.S. officials would support this project,” Sater said.