Brian Roehrkasse

Brian John Roehrkasse (born September 21, 1973), a spokesman at the United States Justice Department under the administration of George W. Bush.

Personal

Brian J. Roehrkasse is from Urbandale, Iowa. Roehrkasse was on the campaign staff for George W. Bush in 2000. From 2001-2002, Roehrkasse served in the Office of Public Affairs at the Department of Transportation. In 2002, he moved to the then newly created Department of Homeland Security where he served as press secretary until 2005. Roehrkasse then became the deputy director of public affairs at the Department of Justice in 2005 and director of public affairs in 2007. Prior to working in Washington, he lived in San Diego and worked in the San Diego office of Porter Novelli.

He graduated from Colorado State University in 1996 with bachelor's degree in journalism.

Controversies

In 2007, Roehrkasse issued press releases in support of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales in response to accusations that Gonzales was less than truthful about Gonzales's involvement in the Dismissal of U.S. Attorneys controversy.

In the December 2007 issue of Washington Monthly magazine, Bud Cummins, the former U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas and one of the nine Bush appointees who was fired, accused Roehrkasse of repeated instances of misleading and inaccurate public statements about events surrounding the dismissals. "Roehrkasse did more than perhaps any other DOJ official to disseminate the avalanche of untruths," Cummins wrote. One of the five events Cummins cited was the phone calls the fired attorneys had received threatening retaliation if they spoke to the media about the nature and conduct of the dismissals. Cummins and other of the attorneys were subpoenaed to testify before Congress about the dismissals, including the phone calls. Roehrkasse's response, Cummins wrote, was to deny that the calls ever took place, and, when that denial was proven false - Roehrkasse subsequently admitted that the calls had indeed occurred but were "collegial" - to characterize the attorneys as "former disgruntled employees grandstanding before Congress."

Notes

Citation
Cummins
Bud
"Brian Roehrkasse, Please Leave the Building"
Washington Monthly
December 2007
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2007/0712.cummins.html
Retrieved on 2008-08-08