Former U.S. Attorney Rachael Rollins agrees to public reprimand from Mass. bar

Local News

Rachael Rollins resigned in 2023 after federal watchdogs said she meddled in the election for Suffolk District Attorney.

Rachael Rollins, who resigned from her post as the top federal prosecutor in Massachusetts amid a wave of controversy in 2023, has agreed to a public reprimand for misconduct. 

That reprimand was detailed in documents released by the Massachusetts Board of Bar Overseers Monday. The reprimand was recommended on June 30, when Rollins agreed to the reprimand without a hearing. But the board has yet to approve the resolution and still lists Rollins as having “disciplinary proceedings pending” on its website. 

Rollins formerly served as the Suffolk County District Attorney before being sworn in as U.S. Attorney in January 2022. Her tenure in that position lasted a little over a year. Rollins resigned after two federal watchdog agencies released scathing reports on her conduct in office. Rollins was accused of an “extraordinary” abuse of power tied to her efforts to meddle in the 2022 race for Suffolk DA. 

When Rollins assumed her new position, current Suffolk DA Kevin Hayden was appointed to fill the position in an interim capacity. He ran against and defeated former Boston City Councilor Ricardo Arroyo in the fall of 2022. Federal watchdogs said that Rollins acted as a “de facto campaign advisor” to Arroyo and attempted to create the public impression that the Department of Justice was considering an investigation of Hayden for public corruption. 

This is the subject of the reprimand that Rollins agreed to. In August 2022, the Boston Globe published an article that centered on how Hayden allegedly failed to investigate an alleged cover-up involving a Transit Police officer, according to the documents, which were first obtained by Reuters. 

Rollins alerted her DOJ superiors about the allegations contained in the Globe and requested that she and the Massachusetts U.S. Attorney’s office be recused from any investigation into Hayden. This recusal was granted on Sept. 1, 2022. 

As detailed in one of the federal watchdog reports, Rollins tipped off a reporter for the Boston Herald about the possible investigation into Hayden in the days just before the primary election. But the Herald decided to hold the story. 

Hayden defeated Arroyo in the primary election on Sept. 6, 2022. That evening, Rollins and Arroyo exchanged a series of text messages. 

“They are not above the law. He will regret the day he did this to you. Watch,” she said to Arroyo, according to the watchdog report. 

On Sept. 9, 2022, Rollins leaked the recusal memo to the Herald reporter, according to the documents. For a few days, she went back and forth, texting the reporter. After being told that he could not publish the memo itself, the reporter asked Rollins if he could quote from it directly. 

“As long as you keep confidential where you got it and will never release it if someone makes a public records request,” Rollins texted the reporter, according to the documents. 

The reporter agreed, and the Herald ran a story on Sept. 11, 2022 with the headline “Rachael Rollins recused as feds eye Suffolk DA Kevin Hayden in MBTA Transit Police case.”

In order to avoid suspicion that she was the source of the leak, Rollins berated her staff immediately after the Herald article was published. 

“WTF!?! When was the office contacted about this? And why wasn’t I called? Immediately? How are they quoting things?” Rollins said in a text to a few staffers, according to the documents. 

The lawyers who investigated the matter for the Board of Bar Overseers and authored the documents determined that Rollins violated multiple DOJ rules through the interaction with the Herald reporter. They recommended that Rollins be reprimanded without a hearing. 

Jeffrey Robbins, a lawyer representing Rollins, questioned why the board has yet to approve the recommended resolution. 

“The professionals tasked by the Board with responsibility for conducting an investigation into the actual facts of the matter – and who have indeed been highly responsible, honorable and discreet in conducting that investigation – and Ms. Rollins are in agreement about its appropriate resolution and closure,” he said in a statement Tuesday. 

“For reasons that are perplexing to Ms. Rollins and perhaps others, the Board has not yet approved the resolution recommended by its own professionals, who are intimately familiar with the actual facts of this matter,” Robbins added. “It is Ms. Rollins’ sincere hope that the Board will adopt the recommendations of its own highly skilled professionals rather than disregard them.”