President Donald Trump has nominated the U.S. attorney in Cleveland, Justin Herdman, to the same position in Washington, D.C.
If confirmed by the Senate as U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, Herdman would oversee cases referred by Robert Mueller’s investigation of foreign interference in the 2016 presidential election.
The office has also been at the center of the recent decisions to lessen presidential ally Roger Stone’s prison sentence and drop charges against Trump’s first national security adviser, Michael Flynn.
Herdman, currently the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Ohio, would replace Timothy Shea, a former aide to Attorney General William Barr. Shea has been D.C.’s top federal prosecutor on an interim basis since February.
Herdman received national attention for an impassioned speech against domestic terrorism in 2019 after an Ohio man was arrested for making anti-Semitic threats online.
In Cleveland, Hermand has mostly followed the guidelines set down by the attorney general at the time of his appointment – Jeff Sessions. He focused on gun and drug charges through Project Safe Neighborhoods and stressed the importance of combatting violent crime.
Before taking the federal job, Herdman was a partner at the Jones Day law firm in Cleveland. He was confirmed by the Senate for his current post in 2017 by unanimous consent.
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