WASHINGTONIAN 43 BY BENJAMIN WOFFORD PHOTOGRAPHS BY LEXEY SWALL

THE MUNICIPAL OFFICIAL

VERSUS

THE PRESIDENT

Two years ago, Karl Racine, the DC government’s top lawyer, was the little-known head of an obscure and relatively new office. Today he’s battling Facebook and suing —a case many serious lawyers think could fundamentally

PHOTO CREDIT PHOTO CREDIT PHOTO CREDIT PHOTO damage this presidency. Who is this guy? And is his

42 WASHINGTONIAN ★ APRIL 2019 crusade actually good for the city that employs him? For many, it would be cosmic justice to see Trump taken down a peg by America’s only immigrant attorney general.

counsel’s Russia probe looms like a thundering war- ship, Racine’s lawsuit may be the silent iceberg that delivers a fateful rupture to the Trump presidency. Amid all this, Racine has worked up a flurry of other high-profile causes, too. In December, he became the first prosecutor in the country to sue Facebook over the tech behemoth’s handling of private data. And within the past year, his office has led a nationwide coalition challenging the administration’s immigra- tion policies—including the denial of asylum seekers and the legality of sanctuary cities. In one ongoing case, Racine—an immigrant who came to America in 1965—has sued ICE himself. In less than five years, Racine has transformed a demure agency that defended the city from nuisance suits into one of the most prolific attorney-general offices in the country. “DC has always had a problem of not being treated with the same kind of seriousness nationally that it deserves,” says James Forman Jr., Talk to people in and Racine went viral after a professor at Yale Law School who teaches criminal around Racine’s office the President name- law. “Racine, I think, is changing that. He’s taken and you get the sense checked him at a March what’s a new office, in essence, and become a player there’s an endgame meeting of AGs. “I on the national stage.” to his high-profile feel like I know you,” lawsuits: statehood Trump said. “I feel like For a city that voted overwhelmingly against the for DC. I know you as well, Mr. President and must endure living in his shadow, it President,” Racine would be the sweetest kind of cosmic justice to see quipped. him taken down a notch by Karl Racine—America’s only immigrant attorney general, at that. Yet whatever the outcome, these cases have already helped Racine assemble an argument for a larger cause. Several DC politicians and outside lawyers say One pale evening in January, Karl Racine was ad- Then, abruptly, Racine let rip. Did anyone happen to House, at approximately the same moment his hotel the District AG’s office now rivals that of any state, and dressing a community auditorium and rapidly losing know that the AG’s office has sued or supported legal opened just down the street. Now Racine may soon that Racine has elevated the case for DC statehood, his grip on the room. Racine was roosted behind a efforts against the Trump administration, all told, 16 become known to Americans as the guy who sued under the precept of a simple theory: If you want to lectern, the 20 attendees mostly slouched in metal times? The phones plunged. “We’ve brought a case Trump, became one of the first people to thumb become a state, sue like one. Ochairs and half-zipped winter coats. Only two weeks together against Donald Trump regarding the emol- through his tax returns, and, it stands to reason, “There really are no more arguments left for why earlier, he had begun his second term as DC’s attor- uments clause.” Every face was now fixed on the six- altered the course of the 45th presidency. we shouldn’t have autonomy,” says Elizabeth Wilkins, ney general—an elected position that, five years ago, foot former point guard. “We allege that the President The emoluments suit, in which a pivotal ap- a former Supreme Court clerk who’s now senior was new on the ballot. Now he found himself mired is profiting from his office,” Racine explained, “in a peals-court ruling is expected this spring, alleges that counsel for policy in Racine’s office. “We look like a in a familiar dilemma: trying to explain exactly who manner that is completely and totally unprecedented.” Trump’s DC hotel and other holdings violate the Con- grownup now.” the hell he was. The move has become something of a favorite stitution’s little-known—and previously untested— Twenty minutes into his remarks, Racine was still parlor trick. “You saw that?” Racine asks me later. anti-corruption provision. “It’s historic,” says Brian WHEN DONALD TRUMP, A YEAR INTO HIS PRESIDENCY, parsing the complex jurisdictions of his office: The “Everybody’s like, What?!” Frosh, the attorney general of and Racine’s smeared refugees fleeing “shithole countries”—“Why AG is the District’s chief legal officer but also shares It also captures his grander ambitions in minia- co-counsel in the suit. “Nobody’s ever sued anyone, do we need more Haitians?” he reportedly asked a criminal caseload with the US Attorney’s Office— ture. Not very long ago, Racine was a public official let alone the President, over the emoluments clause.” aides—Racine took special offense. part lawyer for the mayor, part public prosecutor. with little name recognition managing a black sheep The case is notable not merely for its legal novelty, Racine was born in in 1962, shortly before

The gazes of the attendees fell to their smartphones. of an office. Then Donald Trump won the White IMAGES MARTIN/AP JACQUELYN BY PHOTOGRAPH though. Several scholars believe that, while the special his parents fled the country’s blood-soaked Duvalier

44 WASHINGTONIAN ★ APRIL 2019 APRIL 2019 ★ WASHINGTONIAN 45 “I didn’t speak English. I remember feeling like I was literally placed on another planet.”

regime. His father, the mayor of a small town, was in obvious danger—months earlier, a cousin had been rounded up and shot to death. His mother, a linguist, came to study at Howard and Georgetown. Racine and his elder sister were left behind, reuniting with their parents in America three years later. His moth- er, Racine says, “was not going to raise her kids in a country where we would have to choose either to remain silent or put our lives at risk.” He pauses, then smiles: “That’s ‘chain migration,’ as Trump would say.” Racine recounts the family history one afternoon in his Judiciary Square office, the clock tower of the Trump hotel visible from his corner-suite windows. As a child, he spent weekends with his mother and sister in Georgetown University’s library, whispering in Haitian Creole or French, while his father worked in retail, starting as a security guard at Sears. The family lived in Chevy Chase DC. “I knew I was an immigrant,” Racine says. “I didn’t speak English. I remember going to school and feeling like I was Racine (far right in literally placed on another planet.” Racine was both pictures) became At 56, Racine is the severe kind of good-looking: born in Haiti; a US citizen in 1992, his parents His impeccably kept, white-fringed hair encases two taking his oath at the DC emigrated so raptor eyes that turn up cheerfully at the corners. He courthouse at the start his mother of his law career. has the linguistic tendencies of an appellate lawyer; could study at in casual company, he drops words like “wherein” Georgetown. and “monies.” But silence is his most pronounced The family had mannerism—the stealthy bearing of a litigator lying against Princeton after being fouled by Craig Rob- glamorous DC public defender’s office, where he to investigate companies like Johnson & Johnson a bicultural in wait just to tell you, when you’re all finished, how inson, brother of future First Lady Michelle Obama. developed a reputation for representing juveniles. for allegedly misleading District consumers. The life, speaking you forgot to consider Rule 11. With his permanently (This is one episode Racine holds forth on in gar- He worked in the Office of White House Counsel office’s public-advocacy division, among other French and Creole at home in smiling eyes, the effect can be unsettling, like a Bond rulous detail: “Coach Weinhauer is like, ‘Get in the in the ’90s, representing President Clinton during things, pursues cases of economic justice, such as Northwest DC. villain delighted to realize you’re seated directly over game!’ Oh, shit . . .” he says. “I was f---ing exhausted.”) the Lewinsky era. In 2006, he was named managing wage theft—only one of a handful of AG offices in the a trap door. He never, ever interrupts. Politics yielded little interest—until law school at partner of Venable, the first black person in the country to do so. By the time he became a citizen in 1992, his the , where he took immigration country to helm a law firm of that size. Meanwhile, on the criminal side, Racine quiet- parents had instilled what his sister, Mika, calls a law. On the weekends, he began driving into the coun- Back then, DC had not yet elected an attorney ly established the District as a leader in criminal- bicultural and global perspective: There were the tryside to work at a pro bono legal clinic for migrant general. Instead, the District employed what it called justice reform. The AG is responsible for prosecut- years of Sunday gatherings that the Racines hosted farmworkers. “The only people who did that were “corporation counsel,” a municipal legal team whose ing nearly all of the city’s juvenile offenders. Since for dozens of Haitians, their living room sweet with people who were ‘fighting the power,’ if you will,” he primary duties were to defend the mayor and advise 2015, Racine’s office has quintupled the number of the scent of onion bouillon and roasting pintade. says. “That was my introduction to legal activism.” the city’s agencies. In 2010, DC voters approved a juveniles it has diverted from prosecution into an And year after year, the family went back to Port-au- For the next 20 years, Racine dashed through the ballot measure to establish the first elected AG’s alternative rehabilitation program. Racine also over- Prince, a pilgrimage Racine has continued all his life. ranks of Washington’s legal elite. “Karl stood out,” office by 2014, and when the time came, Racine left sees the only in-house restorative-justice division Sports became his American equalizer. He played says one early mentor, DC District Court judge Amy private practice to run for it. “I just was shocked,” his in the country, mediating disputes between parties basketball in several leagues around the District, Berman Jackson, who has been presiding over a sister says, describing him as a “quiet, reserved guy.” instead of prosecuting them—an idea that’s gaining then for St. John’s College High School in Northwest number of the cases in the Russia probe. Jackson Racine had to build a modern AG office in many currency as a way to break the cycle of the so-called DC, and later for the University of Pennsylvania, encouraged Racine, then in his late twenties, to ways from square one. One of the first priorities school-to-prison pipeline.

where he once hit the game-winning free throw become a US Attorney. Instead, he chose the far less KARLOF COURTESY RACINE PAGE THIS ON PHOTOGRAPHS was a consumer-protection division, which he used CONTINUED ON PAGE 156

46 WASHINGTONIAN ★ APRIL 2019 APRIL 2019 ★ WASHINGTONIAN 47 KARL RACINE Responsibility and Ethics in Washington line-making suit, though, hasn’t earned him as he leans back to gaze out the window, the (CREW), had already brought an emol- “The possibility quite the same plaudits. “This is a naked Old Post Office glimmering at high noon. uments suit against Trump in New York. The action against Facebook goes to “I’m intrigued by the class of candidates It was later thrown out (though is now on was not lost on whether it misled DC residents when it attempt to raise running for President,” he eventually says, appeal). The problem, as lawyers knew allowed Cambridge Analytica—the po- then adds, “I have a very close personal from the beginning, was who had standing anyone that this litical-microtargeting firm cofounded by his profile. It’s relationship with Senator Harris.” Racine to sue. “We realized,” says Deepak Gupta, Trump’s erstwhile campaign chief, Steve met Kamala Harris through her husband, supporting counsel in Racine’s case, “that might mean Bannon—to harvest users’ data for the 2016 not going to with whom he worked at Venable. The AG it would really make a huge difference if earning the presidential race. Though the firm was re- help the people has been the beneficiary of two fundraisers we could get a state—an attorney general.” portedly in violation of Facebook’s terms, hosted by the presidential hopeful from CONTINUED FROM PAGE 47 With Trump’s vast holdings, a suit enmity of Trump the tech giant initially failed to notify its of DC.” California—whom he has officially endorsed could be brought almost anywhere in the users of the mishandling of data. and who, by the way, is that state’s former “Karl was sort of like the first line to country. But a single property stood out and retaliation in Racine is suing on consumer-protection attorney general. hit the beach, and not the tidal wave that among the rest: 1100 Pennsylvania Avenue, grounds and seeking three things: civil For now, though, the District’s AG is pre- came after him,” says Miriam Krinsky, a the new Trump International Hotel, an some form.” penalties, to make Facebook suffer for mis- occupied with his looming battles against the prominent advocate for criminal-justice easy mark for any diplomat, business, or leading DC residents; restitution, so locals current President. According to reports this reform, referring to the reformers who have lobbyist aiming to please the President. can get a check for their hardship; and a year, Racine has subpoenaed documents re- subsequently become top prosecutors in Plus, the next-door neighbor of Maryland court order preventing Facebook from ever lating to Trump’s inaugural committee—the Philadelphia and Chicago. “He really is the could prove the emoluments clause’s case has hit a major crossroads. District pulling the same stunt again. Allen suggests another benefit of Ra- stirrings of a potential new inquest. Trump gold standard.” inverse—that other states were suffering Court judge Peter Messitte handed down While the case is still in a nascent stage, cine’s marquee lawsuits, though—attention has given observers good reason to speculate from DC’s gain. As Eisen puts it, “They’re rulings on the lawsuit’s central theory: The the wider response so far has been more to DC. “When we talk about our ultimate whether the moves have wormed their way THE OFFICE MIGHT HAVE REMAINED A LITTLE- the perfect jurisdictions for this case.” emoluments clause could be applied to a muted than it was to the emoluments fight. goal of statehood,” says Allen, “Karl will be into his brain: At a meeting of attorneys noticed landmark on the mental map of (Neither Trump’s lawyers nor the Justice sitting President’s business interests. The Racine is charging alone: No other AGs have a big part of it.” general in the White House’s State Dining locals. Then the Democrats lost the White Department would comment. Eisen spoke suit would go forward. Racine and Frosh, in signed on or filed a similar suit of their own. Room last month, the two rivals shared a House and Racine responded in kind. to Washingtonian shortly before the House turn, subpoenaed nearly 40 entities, includ- “This is a harder case than it seems,” says WHAT DOES KARL RACINE WANT? FOLLOW HIM notable exchange. “Hi, Karl,” the President On Election Night, he left a watch party committee hired him.) ing Trump businesses and federal agencies, Berin Szoka, who leads TechFreedom, a around to the community gatherings of said, grinning as he singled out Racine from feeling physically sick. Several months lat- In March 2017, Eisen walked Racine and for thousands of pages of tax documents cyberpolicy think tank. “I’m skeptical this half-interested audiences that pack his the crowd. “I feel like I know you.” er, during a gathering of AGs at a DC hotel, Frosh through the ways in which the lawsuit that would likely show every diplomat, lob- complaint . . . [is] really going to go any- public schedule and it’s hard to miss the “I feel like I know you as well, Mr. Pres- Racine was pulled into a meeting with Lau- might be won. Frosh felt readier to commit. byist, and politician who has given money where.” One problem is that Facebook users air of a local pol, putting in the patient, ident,” Racine quipped. rence Tribe, a constitutional-law professor But Racine was apprehensive: He wanted to to the President’s companies. The Trump give away their data for free—an impedi- painstaking work of introducing himself to Hardly anyone who knows Racine well at Harvard, and Norm Eisen, the prominent be convinced they had “not just a good-faith administration, in response, requested ment to Racine’s argument for restitution. voters. Voters who might cast their ballot can resist the irony. “The champion for the Washington ethics lawyer who was recently argument but a winning argument,” he says. an emergency appeal. Should Racine and If Racine can show that users would have for the only higher city office available to people that Donald Trump is persecuting named special oversight counsel to the “We couldn’t afford to go forward with a Frosh succeed at quashing the appeal, made a different choice had they known the District’s AG: a Mayor Karl Racine. is himself an immigrant!” says Frosh, House judiciary committee. The unex- case for simple reasons of publicity.” AGs Eisen says, boxes of the President’s financial about the breach—switched accounts, for But it’s not hard to picture him pivoting describing the Shakespearean fortune of pected topic: the myriad ways Trump was contend with limited resources; every failed records—presumably sitting in a basement example, to MySpace—he might win. But to higher office, either. Racine co-chairs a presidency that could be imperiled by a violating the Constitution’s emoluments lawsuit here is a malfeasant corporation that somewhere—would be turned over. that’s hard to prove. the Democratic Attorneys General Associ- refugee from a “shithole” country. “It’s ap- clause—a flashy legal argument that sound- goes unsanctioned there, and the work of an If the case proceeds to trial, that could Some tech lawyers think the bigger play is ation and has helped ramp up the group’s propriate—even complete, in an odd way.” ed exotic even to the assembled crowd. “I AG is funded at taxpayer expense. There was mean some or much of the documents and for history. Certainly, Silicon Valley feels this fundraising and profile, the better to com- Racine never says as much outright. But must have slept through emoluments day also a chance of reputational damage to a testimony would become public—a new way. “This is a naked attempt by the attorney pete against its Republican counterpart as he gestures me out of his office, he stops at law school,” says Frosh, the Maryland AG. new office like Racine’s, along with another political albatross for Trump in the year general to generate headlines and raise his in races around the country. He’s also in at a piece of artwork hanging from the wall: “None of us knew what that was.” potential risk: “I think the possibility was leading up to 2020. Constitutional scholar profile,” says one tech insider in Washington line to become bipartisan president of the a folk pastiche of the US flag, rendered in Ever since Louis XVI presented Ambas- not lost on anyone that taking this step Noah Feldman, at Harvard Law School, has who has followed the suit closely. “And it’s National Association of Attorneys Gen- craggy, brilliant hues. Scrawled across the sador Benjamin Franklin with a snuff box might mean earning the enmity of Trump written that proof of the President’s profi- not going to help the people of DC.” eral—a ceremonial position, but one with stripes, like the covert notes of a private full of diamonds, the country’s founders and his allies,” says Gupta—meaning “pos- teering from his office would provide “the If there’s a prevailing criticism of Racine genuine cachet. journal, reads a faint message signed in were obsessed with how to insulate public sible retaliation in some form.” most clear-cut” legal basis for “constitu- around the city, it’s that: an AG busy assem- “I could see Racine possibly being the at- ghostly gray: bring me your huddled servants from such enticements. The pas- At their final go-ahead meeting, “Racine tionally grounded articles of impeachment bling a national platform while District torney general of the United States,” says DC masses / yearning to breathe free. sages on emoluments—an archaic term for cross-examined me like Perry Mason,” against Donald Trump.” residents squint to see the tangible benefit Council member Elissa Silverman, some- “This is what the United States is about, tributes or favors—were partly the answer. Eisen says, and “for close to two hours.” Several people involved in the case, mean- of cases like Facebook. “There was some thing others around town have suggested as in my opinion,” Racine says, his eyes fixed Now Racine, Frosh, and a dozen or so other DC and Maryland proceeded to file the while, describe Judge Messitte’s decision to anxiety and concern,” says DC Council well. If this seems fanciful, Silverman offers on the painting. “I asked the artist to do AGs listened as Eisen and Tribe described suit together in June 2017. By then, their approve their core legal argument as a coup member Charles Allen, a Racine fan, de- a counterpoint. In the late ’90s, a former DC me a favor.” He directs an uncurled finger Trump’s financial entanglements with material fact-finding was aided by news in itself—and they cite recruiting Racine as scribing the doubts he’s heard in the past: Superior Court judge was also talked about toward the corner of the canvas. A dash of foreign banks and properties around the reports of possible influence-seeking: the the turning point. “In a lot of ways,” says “ ‘It’s an appropriate thing for an AG to do. as a potential mayor: Eric Holder, who in- exuberant white—a bit brighter than the world—a reported $2 billion of assets in Kuwaiti ambassador moving his indepen- Gupta, “we already have succeeded.” But just because it’s appropriate, should stead landed an appointment as US Attorney others—had been laid long after the paint all and a potentially irresistible magnet for dence celebration to the Trump hotel, for you?’ ” Racine rejects this hypothetical and for DC, then climbed to the topmost rank at was dry: an added star. W governments that might wish to curry favor instance, or lobbyists for the Saudi govern- HAD THEY KNOWN RACINE AND FROSH WOULD insists Facebook is a quintessential case of Justice. “I see Mr. Holder and Mr. Racine as with his administration. ment booking $270,000 worth of stays at get this far, Eisen says, more AGs would harm to local residents. “My strong hunch,” not that different,” Silverman says. Staff writer Benjamin Wofford can be Eisen may have had another reason to the hotel starting in December 2016. have signed on to the case—Racine, he says, he adds, “is that we won’t be the only one Remarkably, Racine doesn’t laugh this off. reached at [email protected]. be there: His watchdog group, Citizens for Twenty months later, the emoluments “called it right.” The AG’s newest head- who sues Facebook.” “That’s a big job,” he sighs a bit theatrically On Twitter, he’s @benwofforddc.

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