Executive Branch

The Lawfare Podcast: Assistant Treasury Secretary Paul Rosen on the CFIUS Process

Jen Patja, Scott R. Anderson, Brandon L. Van Grack, Paul Rosen
Thursday, July 6, 2023, 12:00 PM
What is the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States and why is it so important for national security?

Published by The Lawfare Institute
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The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, or CFIUS, is one of the most important national security offices that you have probably never heard of. Responsible for reviewing foreign investment in the United States for possible national security threats, its jurisdiction and scope of work has expanded dramatically in recent years—and may be on the verge of expanding once again, as the Biden administration considers installing similar measures for outbound U.S. investment.

To discuss, Lawfare Contributing Editor Brandon Van Grack and Lawfare Senior Editor Scott R. Anderson sat down with Assistant Treasury Secretary for Investment Security Paul Rosen, whose office oversees the CFIUS process, for the first of what we are calling “The Regulators”: a special series Lawfare is co-sponsoring with our friends at the law firm Morrison Foerster, where Brandon is a partner, featuring one-on-one discussions with the senior officials that are implementing our new era of economic statecraft. They discussed how the CFIUS process works in practice, how it’s changed, and what challenges sit on the horizon, both for U.S. policymakers and the businesses they interact with.



Jen Patja is the editor and producer of the Lawfare Podcast and Rational Security. She currently serves as the Co-Executive Director of Virginia Civics, a nonprofit organization that empowers the next generation of leaders in Virginia by promoting constitutional literacy, critical thinking, and civic engagement. She is the former Deputy Director of the Robert H. Smith Center for the Constitution at James Madison's Montpelier and has been a freelance editor for over 20 years.
Scott R. Anderson is a fellow in Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution and a Senior Fellow in the National Security Law Program at Columbia Law School. He previously served as an Attorney-Adviser in the Office of the Legal Adviser at the U.S. Department of State and as the legal advisor for the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, Iraq.
Brandon L. Van Grack is a partner and co-chair of the National Security and Crisis Management practices at Morrison & Foerster LLP. He is a former senior national security official at the U.S. Department of Justice, where he served as Chief of the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) Unit, Senior Assistant Special Counsel to Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller III, Counsel to the Assistant Attorney General for the National Security Division, Trial Attorney in the Counterintelligence & Export Control Section, and as a prosecutor in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia.
Paul Rosen serves as the Assistant Treasury Secretary for Investment Security. His office oversees the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) process.

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