I do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.

But I will bear true faith and allegiance to the sea that I take this obligation freely.

Without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion, and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter.

So help me God, it's a help me God.

So help me God.

Welcome to the oath. I'm Chuck Rosenberg. I'm so glad you would join us for another fascinating conversation from the world of public service.

This week, I sit down with Barbara McQuade, the former United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan.

Barb is a Detroit native. She grew up here. And before becoming the United States Attorney, served as a line federal prosecutor for 12 years in that wonderful office.

Today on the oath, Barbara and I talk about a number of the cases she supervised as U.S. Attorney from one of the most outrageous healthcare frauds ever committed by a doctor in the United States to a public corruption case involving former mayor Kwame Kilpatrick.

Barb McQuade, welcome to the oath.

Oh, thanks very much, Chuck.

I should let folks know we're actually sitting in a beautiful office on the campus of the University of Michigan Law School or you're on faculty.

Yeah, it's a beautiful place and I consider myself very lucky to be here.

Well, thanks for having us. So I'm interested, Barb, in lots of things about you, including what grew you to public service, you actually started as a newspaper reporter.

Yeah, I think my first memory of current events in the world is Watergate. And I was probably a little young to understand what was happening in real time.

I remember seeing that in the headlines every day and wondered what that was. And I remember asking my mother and she told me that Watergate was an office complex. And that just made me even more confused.

But as years went on, I was really curious and studied it and wanted to learn more about it.

Your mom was literally correct.

She was literally correct.

But of course, it was so much more. It was a shorthand for the scandal. And I knew it was something that the president had done that was bad, but I didn't know much more about it.

But I studied it as years went on and so it sparked an interest.

It did. And the first interest it sparked really was in the reporters who were involved in that case, Woodward and Bernstein.

...