It's being reported that Bill Barr will be selecting--possibly as early as this week--Jeffrey Rosen to be his Deputy AG, replacing Rod Rosenstein who will depart within a matter of weeks. If true, this comes as no surprise.
Rosen is a longtime partner of Kirkland and Ellis, Barr's firm, so that means Barr knows and trusts him. Rosen also has government experience, having served during the Bush years at USDOT as well as general counsel and senior policy advisor at OMB. Most recently he was confirmed in May, 2017, as the Deputy Secretary of Transportation, and that means Rosen is also well known to the Trump White House. My understanding is that this means that Rosen will not need to go through confirmation hearings again, but can step right in as DAG. That's one more sign that Barr intends to hit the ground running at DoJ.
Another interesting aspect of Rosen's past experience is that in 2015-2016 he chaired the American Bar Association's Section of Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice. That's significant, because Trump has made administrative and regulatory reform a key feature of his administration. Both of Trump's SCOTUS appointments, Gorsuch and Kavanaugh, have strong backgrounds and strong views in that area of the law. Having someone like Rosen with a strong background in administrative and regulatory law as DAG will be a major help to all departments.
Rosen, as Deputy AG, will supervise FBI Director Christopher Wray. However, I assume that Rosen will rely heavily on Barr's past experience with the FBI to guide him.
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