(Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
As early as today, the Biden administration will begin contacting the 56 senate-confirmed U.S. Attorneys to ask for their resignations, CNN reports. The only exceptions to the ouster of Trump appointees will be David Weiss in Delaware, who is investigating Hunter Biden for tax issues, and Connecticut’s John Durham, who is still plugging away on the origins of the Trump-Russia probe.
Acting Attorney General Monty Wilkerson, heading the DOJ until such time as Lindsey Graham gets off his high horse and allows Merrick Garland to be confirmed, called Weiss and Durham last night and told them that they would be exempt from the turnover, although Durham will no longer be U.S.A. for Connecticut.
The move has been widely anticipated, with Senators soliciting applications for the expected vacancies for months. Indeed, it is standard practice for presidents to replace political appointees at the Justice Department. Although most administrations handle the transition with more aplomb than Trump, who told Preet Bharara that he could stay at S.D.N.Y, then backtracked, only to have his personal attorney Marc Kasowitz brag that he’d personally gotten Bharara fired.
It’s unclear whether Biden intends to immediately replace acting U.S. Attorneys Audrey Strauss in Manhattan and Seth DuCharme in Brooklyn, both career DOJ employees heading up politically charged investigations in offices that Bill Barr tried to to ratf*ck in spectacular fashion. Ditto for acting U.S.A. Michael Sherwin in D.C., who has been holding down the fort since Barr pushed out Jesse Liu with an offer of a Treasury Job which never materialized, and is now managing the Capitol riot probe.
As for the other offices, according to CNN, “Justice officials have scheduled a call with US attorneys around the country to discuss a transition that is expected to take weeks,” which sounds like they’re aiming to do this in an orderly fashion, rather than shoving everyone out the door post haste.
Competence, it’s so refreshing.
DOJ to ask Trump-appointed US attorneys to resign [CNN]
Elizabeth Dye lives in Baltimore where she writes about law and politics.