As he begins his job as the Trump administration’s top prosecutor in Massachusetts, Andrew Lelling is trying to enforce priorities of the Justice Department in a state that doesn’t share a lot of its views.
As Lelling spoke with reporters at his office for the first time, the U.S. attorney was peppered with a wide range of questions. But the biggest topic of the day was how this new federal prosecutor will handle marijuana. The state is legalizing recreational dispensaries, but it’s still federally illegal. And Lelling said it’s his job to enforce that law.
"The best I can say is remind people it's illegal under federal law, but make clear that we do cases on a case-by-case basis,” Lelling said.
And he said marijuana is not his office’s top priority.
"2,100 people in Massachusetts were killed by opioid overdoses last year, not marijuana overdoses,” he said. “So that is where my resources are going right now."
Lelling said his office has about 14 prosecutors who specialize in drug enforcement, and all of them are spending the bulk of their time chasing down trafficking of heroin and opioids.
He said he understands why Massachusetts lawmakers are considering legislation to bar state and local police from cooperating with federal police on marijuana busts.
"We're in a bind, I think the state and local police who we work with are also in a bit of a bind,” he said. “So if you're a state law enforcement officer and you have literally sworn to uphold state law, you're now in a position where if you're assisting on a federal marijuana case, maybe there's a conflict between the state law you're supposed to uphold and the federal law that you were helping to enforce.”
Lelling said his office needs to work with state and local law enforcement all the time, and he hopes this issue doesn’t lead to tension between them in other kinds of investigations.
He was asked if he had ever smoked marijuana himself. “Do I look like someone who has smoked weed?” he asked. He clarified he hadn’t.
Lelling said his office does expect to become more aggressive when it comes to immigration enforcement.
“That is a priority coming out of Washington,” he said. “It's important to the president. It's important to the attorney general.”
He said his office would take two approaches to immigration enforcement: “In cases we traditionally do — say, drug trafficking — you may see more immigration-related charges included in those cases. And I think you'll also see that we do more stand-alone immigration cases.”
He said his office isn’t as interested in prosecuting people just for being in the country illegally. “We would much rather deal with people who are here illegally and have committed some other kind of offense,” he said. “I think we would prioritize those, or prioritize people who are here illegally and have re-entered the country illegally multiple times.”
The U.S. attorney’s office in Boston has prosecuted a number of terrorism-related cases in recent years, including the Boston Marathon bombing case and other cases linked to ISIS. Lelling said his office is very good at those prosecutions and will continue that work. But now, he said, they’re trying to be more preventative.
“The FBI has taken on a preventative role to try and stop people from becoming radicalized or keep tabs on people who have shown signs of radicalization or being dangerous, and we assist with that effort,” he said. “And so I think that'll continue.”
The U.S. attorney is a political appointment, and Lelling was asked what kind of prosecutorial discretion he might have, and how much direction he might get from the Trump administration. Lelling said he hasn’t met with Trump and said he appreciates that U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions has his own experience as a U.S. attorney.
“He has not forgotten that experience, and included in that experience is he has not forgotten how much he disliked getting directives from Washington,” Lelling said. “And that's a wonderful thing.”
He acknowledged that his role here in Boston, appointed by Trump to pursue the president’s law enforcement agenda, might cause some tension in this district.
“If you're going to apply to be the United States attorney in Boston in a Republican administration, you have to keep in mind that you are the representative of an administration that might not be popular, at least in greater Boston,” he said. “It trends Democrat. It trends liberal. You have to be prepared for that.”
He added that when his prosecutors run into issues like marijuana or immigration, where federal priorities aren’t shared by state and local police, that’s going to be a conversation between grown-ups. And if the feds don’t get help, they’ll have to go it alone.
This story has been updated to include new information.
