User:Archivethomas/sandbox

David C. Vladeck (born June 6, 1951) is the former director of the Bureau of Consumer Protection of the Federal Trade Commission, an independent agency of the United States government. He was appointed by the chairman of the FTC, Jon Leibowitz, on April 14, 2009, shortly after Leibowitz became chairman.

[This lead mentions only the FTC, which was just 4 years of Vladeck's career. New lead needed. Then those specifics on his appointment can move down in front of the FTC section.]

[New section on Rosenberg case]

The Rosenberg Grand Jury Records Lawsuit

Vladeck served as lead attorney on the 2008 petition by the National Security Archive, historians' groups, and New York Times writer Sam Roberts to open the grand jury records on the espionage prosecution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, perhaps the most famous spy case of the Cold War. Vladeck helped organize declarations from scholars across the political spectrum in support of the release, arguing that the public and historical interest, the passage of time, and the fact that the prosecutors, judge, and witnesses were almost all dead outweighed the normal rules of criminal procedure that keep grand jury records secret indefinitely.

When Vladeck succeeded in opening the first tranche of the grand jury records, the new evidence changed the narrative on the Rosenberg case significantly. The records described extensive espionage work by Julius Rosenberg, but undermined the prosecutors' central charge against Ethel Rosenberg, that she had typed up information about the atomic bomb from her brother David Greenglass, a former machinist at the Los Alamos bomb laboratory. Instead, Greenglass's wife Ruth admitted in front of the grand jury to the typing, but was never charged. With the second tranche of grand jury records released in 2015, David Greenglass's own testimony made the perjury clear, that he had testified at the trial to convict his sister and keep his wife from prosecution.

David C. Vladeck (born June 6, 1951) is a Georgetown University law professor (since 2002), a veteran public interest litigator, and former director (2009-2012) of the Federal Trade Commission's Bureau of Consumer Protection. He worked for more than 25 years at the Public Citizen Litigation Group, the last 10 as the Group's director. Among many other cases, he served as lead attorney for the petition that opened the grand jury records on the Julius and Ethel Rosenberg spy prosecution, showing that Ethel's brother had changed his testimony between the grand jury and the trial to convict his sister and exonerate his wife.