A top official at the Department of Justice (DoJ) who is directing aggressive prosecutions of minor crimes in Washington DC pleaded guilty to driving under the influence four years ago, the Guardian has found. His subsequent elevation to a high-ranking post is unusual in light of that arrest, experts said.
Aakash Singh, 33, became an associate deputy attorney general this year and has been instructing attorneys to prioritize charges against protesters and people committing misdemeanors, even allegedly advising them to call new grand juries if they fail to get felony indictments.
Singh received the promotion from assistant US attorney after Donald Trump took office, following a relatively brief legal career. While he was serving as an assistant US attorney in North Carolina in 2021, police in Raleigh arrested Singh and charged him with driving while impaired, according to police records obtained by the Guardian. That month, Singh was prosecuting several high-profile cases for the US government, including violent robberies and fentanyl trafficking.
The role of associate deputy attorney general is typically staffed by a handful of senior career attorneys advising the deputy attorney general.
Promoting someone who has a criminal history to associate deputy attorney general is not typical, Ken White, a former federal prosecutor, said.
“The DoJ tends to be super harsh about criminal background,” White said. “I was told if you ever smoked pot, forget [being hired as an assistant US attorney] and DoJ is even more strict.”
Former federal prosecutor Mark Rasch said that a DWI isn’t necessarily career-ending at the justice department, but that an offense like that would typically be vetted and investigated internally. “It’s unusual, but could be survivable,” he said.
Singh did not reply to multiple requests for comment. A justice department spokesperson said: “Aakash is a valued member of the Department who plays an important role in ensuring the President’s America First agenda is carried out. That includes standing firmly with law enforcement and making sure our streets are safe from rampant violent crime. We are proud of the work he and this Department do every day to restore law and order for the American people.”
Singh has emerged as a vocal enforcer of directives from the president to aggressively charge people amid the federal crackdowns in Los Angeles and Washington DC. Jeanine Pirro, the US attorney for the District of Columbia, has brought federal charges against more than 50 people since the crackdown began.
Last month, the justice department attempted to bring harsh charges against people protesting the military and federal police presence in DC, along with people simply swept up in the crackdown who were arrested for offenses typically prosecuted as misdemeanors. A grand jury rejected felony assault charges for a man who allegedly threw a sandwich at a Customs and Border Protection officer last month; the man, Sean Dunn, was fired from the justice department after the incident, where he had worked as a paralegal.
Singh encouraged US attorneys to not be dissuaded by widespread criticism of those attempts, according to the New York Times. The number of felony cases prosecutors in DC have dismissed has increased to 11, causing a magistrate judge to warn prosecutors: “That’s not the way it’s supposed to work, and it has real-world consequences.” At least six DC grand juries have failed to return federal indictments – a result called a “no bill” – since August, an unprecedented number in a short time, legal experts say.
Singh met with federal prosecutors in August and advised them that if grand jurors refused to indict on those aggressive charges that they should impanel new grand juries, according to the New York Times.
In June, amid widespread protests against Ice actions in Los Angeles, Singh instructed all 93 federal prosecutors to not only prioritize prosecuting protesters, but to publicize those cases. Some of those ensuing federal charges also failed to get California grand juries on board.
Federal prosecutors failing to win indictments is historically highly unusual, Rasch said, considering the advantages the federal government usually enjoys.
“That’s a warning sign that there is something wrong with the case, if the jury says you didn’t even meet the threshold for probable cause,” Rasch said. He added that trying to maximize charges by stacking crimes in these recent justice department high-profile cases in DC is “abusive”.
“The idea isn’t to throw the book at someone, it’s to charge appropriately,” he said.
White agreed, saying that Singh’s reported instruction to keep calling grand juries was “ludicrous”.
“That’s way out of line and completely unlike anything I ever heard at the DoJ,” he said.
The justice department disputed the Times’s account of Singh’s comments, saying: “Aakash never said ‘simply impanel new grand juries’. The context was what should AUSAs [assistant US attorneys] do when they have a case that meets the elements of the crime, but grand jurors refuse to say yes to probable cause when they swore an oath to be impartial in evaluating a case. Aakash’s advice to them was to flag those issues for the US attorney who can discuss with the district court judges so the courts can remind the grand jurors that they swore an oath to be impartial in evaluating a case.”
In September 2021, the Raleigh police department arrested Singh in downtown Raleigh at approximately 10pm, and he scored a 0.11 on a breath test, according to police records. Singh’s eyes appeared bloodshot in a mugshot posted by Wake county.
Singh was charged with a level 5 DWI, which is a standard charge based on his intoxication level with no aggravated factors under the state’s DUI laws, North Carolina attorney T Greg Doucette said. Singh pleaded guilty and was ordered to pay a total of $393, serve 24 hours of community service and undergo a substance abuse assessment, and his license was revoked for 30 days. His defense attorney was a former assistant district attorney in the county.
US attorney Ed Martin, Trump’s original pick for DC US attorney and now director of the DoJ’s “Weaponization Working Group”, appears to be a fan of Singh, calling him “The Great One” in a May X post.
Mike Davis, a staunch Trump ally who previously served as chief counsel for nominations to Chuck Grassley, chair of the Senate judiciary committee, called Singh a “a close friend” in a January X post supporting Martin’s then-appointment. He hailed Singh and a colleague as helping Martin “kick down the door” of what he viewed as an office corrupted by “lawfare and political persecution”.
Singh graduated George Washington University law school in 2017.
Rasch said that a 2017 law school graduate being promoted to such a high-level political appointment at the justice department is unusual.
“Normally these political appointees are chosen not only for political reasons, but because they have credentials that are impeccable, with extensive prosecutorial and managerial experience,” he said. “But political fealty seems to be the single qualification now [under the Trump administration].”
“And what about the hypocrisy,” Rasch said. “Why did someone who threw a sandwich get fired [from the justice department] while someone convicted of drunk driving get promoted?”
