On January 14, 2021, a group of eighty-five former senior officials of the United States Department of Justice who have served in the administrations of both political parties signed a letter to the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs in support of the confirmation of NAFUSA member Ali Mayorkas to serve as secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. Click here to review the letter: Mayorkas DOJ Letter
U.S. Attorney Byung J. Pak/Photo by Bob Andres/Atlanta Journal-Constitution/Associated Press
The Wall Street Journal reported on January 9, 2021, that “White House officials pushed Atlanta’s top federal prosecutor to resign before Georgia’s U.S. Senate runoffs because President Trump was upset he wasn’t doing enough to investigate the president’s unproven claims of election fraud, people familiar with the matter said.”
U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia Byung J. Pak resigned abruptly on Monday before the runoffs, telling his staff that it was due to “unforeseen circumstances.” President Trump then put the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Georgia, Bobby L. Christine, in charge of both districts. According to an audio recording obtained by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Christine declared on a call with his staff on Monday, January 11, that “there’s just nothing to” the few claims of fraud the office was examining.
The Journal article referenced that before Attorney General William Barr left office he said “the Justice Department hadn’t found evidence of widespread voter fraud that could reverse the election of Mr. Biden’s victory, including claims of fraud, ballot destruction and voting-machine destruction.” The Journal also noted that the during Trump’s January 2 call to Georgia’s secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, the president complained that Mr. Pak was a “Never Trumper.”
Click here to read the full WSJ article White House Forced Georgia U.S. Attorney to Resign
January 6, 2021 may have been the infamous date of the attack on the United States Capitol, but it was also the day President Elect Biden announced four key nominations for the Department of Justice. Judge Merrick Garland of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, is Biden’s choice for Attorney General.
Judge Garland is the former Chief Judge of the DC Circuit and has served on the that Circuit since 1997. He attended Harvard University for his undergraduate and legal education. He served as a law clerk to Judge Henry J. Friendly of the Second Circuit and for Justice William J. Brennan Jr. of the Supreme Court. Judge Garland also served in the Department of Justice as a special assistant to Attorney General Benjamin Civiletti, 1979-1981. In 1989 he returned to the Department as an Assistant United States Attorney in the DC’s U.S. Attorney’s office. In 1993, he became a deputy assistant attorney general in the Criminal Division at Main Justice and in 1994 was named the principal deputy associate attorney general under DAG Jamie Gorelick.
Lisa Monaco will be nominated to serve as Deputy Attorney General. She served in the Department of Justice for fifteen years, spending the majority of her time as a career federal prosecutor and eventually being appointed Associate Deputy Attorney General; Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General; and the first woman confirmed as Assistant Attorney General for National Security. She has also served as Counsel and Chief of Staff to then-FBI Director Robert Mueller and White House Homeland Security and Counterterrorism Advisor. She earned her Juris Doctor at the the University of Chicago Law School.
Vanita Gupta will be nominated to serve as Associate Attorney General. She has served as the Acting Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights in the Obama-Biden Administration. She is the president and chief executive officer of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights Civil Rights Coalition. She earned her Juris Doctor at New York University.
Kristen Clarke has been named to serve as Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights. She started in career as a career attorney in the Civil Rights Division. She is currently the president and executive director of the National Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Law and has served as the head of he Civil Rights Bureau for the New York State Attorney General’s Office. She earned her law degree from Harvard University.
Long time NAFUSA member Richard (Dick) Thornburgh passed away on Thursday morning, December 31, 2020. He was 88. President Ronald Reagan appointed Thornburgh to be the Attorney General of the United States in August 1988, and he was asked to stay on by President George H.W. Bush. He served as AG until 1991. Thornburgh also served as the United States Attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania (1969-1975); Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division (1975-1977); Governor of Pennsylvania (1979-1987); and Under-Secretary on the United Nations (1992-1993)
Click here to view the news advisory from K&L Gates, where Dick began his private practice as an associate in 1959 and returned after his time in public service, until his retirement from the firm in early 2019. He is survived by his wife, Ginny, four sons, six grandchildren, and five great grandchildren. As is our custom, NAFUSA will request that an American flag be flown over Main Justice in Dick’s honor, and presented to his family as a token of the regard with which he was held by his colleagues.
One of NAFUSA’s founding members Victor Ortega writes:
Like everyone else I was saddened to learn of the passing of Dick Thornburgh. As I explained at the San Francisco meeting, NAFUSA really had its origins in the first Attorney General’s Advisory Committee of United States Attorneys which was appointed by Attorney General Elliott Richardson. Many of the founders of NAFUSA were members of that original Advisory Committee. Dick Thornburgh was one of the original appointees to the Advisory Committee. With his passing I believe there are only three of the original Advisory Committee members left, Ralph Guy, now a Senior Judge on the 6th Circuit, Bob Fiske and me. Ralph Guy was one of the founders of NAFUSA as well. Dick Thornburgh was a contemporary, a friend and an outstanding public servant and we will miss him.
Another NAFUSA member, Chuck Rosenberg, shared this memory The first phone call.
NAFUSA member Chuck Rosenberg has kicked off Season 4 of his of his successful Podcast The Oath with an interview of another NAFUSA member, Bob Mueller. The first part of this two hour in depth program is now available and the second half will be broadcast at the end of Season 4.
Bob will not be discussing the details of his role as special prosecutor. He does, however, talk at some length about his life as a student athlete, Princeton graduate, a decorated Marine officer in Vietnam, a graduate of the University of Virginia Law School, and his distinguished career at Justice. He truly is an American hero.
Previous seasons of The Oath have featured other NAFUSA members, including Pat Fitzgerald, Joyce Vance, Preet Bharara, Barb McQuade, and Carol Lam, as well as Sally Yates and Jim Comey. (msnbc.com/theoath)
Jim Burns, whose success took him from the basketball court to the federal courthouse as U.S. attorney (ND Illinois 1993-1997) died Friday, December 11, 2020. He was 75.
The death was announced by Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White, who appointed Burns in April 2000 to serve as inspector general, a job he had held ever since. Burns took the post as federal investigators were continuing their Operation Safe Road corruption probe of the office under White’s predecessor, George Ryan, who was elected governor in 1998. Ryan was released from prison in 2013 after being sentenced to 6½ years on corruption charges.
Born in Quincy and raised in McLeansboro in southeastern Illinois, he led his high school to fourth place in the state basketball tournament before getting a scholarship to Northwestern University.
He won third-team All-America, Academic All-America and All-Big Ten honors in his senior season with the Wildcats in 1966-67 and graduated with a degree in history. He spent a year professionally with the Chicago Bulls and then the Dallas Chaparrals in the American Basketball Association in 1967 before a torn Achilles tendon late in the season ended his playing days.
He returned to Northwestern in 1968 and received a law degree in 1971. Burns then served as an assistant U.S. attorney from 1971 to 1978 and moved to the position of chief of the criminal division.
He then went into private practice, serving as a regulatory partner with Isham, Lincoln and Beale from 1978 to 1987 and then became a defense and regulatory partner with Keck, Mahin and Cate from 1987-1993.
Burns gave up the federal prosecutor’s post for an unsuccessful bid for the Democratic nomination for governor in 1998. Burns returned to private practice at Sidley & Austin before being named to the inspector general’s job by White, whose office looked to try to restore voter integrity as a result of the federal investigations left under Ryan.
He is survived by his wife, Martha, and 3 children. As is our custom, at the request of NAFUSA, an American flag was flown over Main Justice and will be presented to his family as a token of the regard with which Jim was held by his colleagues.
NAFUSA life member and past president Jim Cissell (SD Ohio 1978-1982) has released the 2021 edition of Federal Criminal Trials. Jim has been producing this single volume treatise for several years. NAFUSA member Joe Whitley (ND Georgia 1990-1993, MD Georgia 1981-1986) calls Jim’s book “an indispensable resource to getting quickly to the heart of highly complex federal criminal litigation issues.”
Jim has offered NAFUSA members a 20% discount. Attached for use by NAFUSA is a PDF file containing a promotional flyer that includes information about the purchase discount.
OFF04536-1_P60877 Fed Criminal Trials 2021 Ed_Author flyer_final
Alejandro N. Mayorkas. J. Scott Applewhite/Associated Press
NAFUSA member Alejandro Mayorkas will be nominated by President Elect Joe Biden to become the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. Mayorkas served as the deputy secretary of Homeland Security from 2013 to 2016 and the director of United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) from 2009-2013. He is currently a partner at WilmerHale.
“It is no small task to lead the Department of Homeland Security, but I will work to restore faith in our institutions, and protect our security here at home,” Mayorkas said in a tweet.
Cuban born, Mayorkas graduated from the University of California at Berkeley and Loyola Law School. He served as the United States Attorney for the Central District of California, 1998-2001. He has been recognized as one of the “50 Most Influential Minority Lawyers in America” by the National Law Journal.
Supreme Judicial Court Justice Kimberly Budd and Gov. Charlie Baker- Stuart Cahill/Pool
NAFUSA member Wayne Budd (Massachusetts 1989-1992) is the proud father of the newest chief justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Court. His daughter, Justice Kimberly Budd, was unanimously confirmed Wednesday, November 19, as the chief justice of Massachusetts’ highest court. She became the first Black woman to serve as chief justice. Her nomination was confirmed by a 7-0 vote of the Governor’s Council.
Republican Gov. Charlie Baker, who nominated Budd, called her “an exceptional and dignified jurist that has served on the Supreme Judicial Court with fairness and integrity.”
Budd, a former federal prosecutor, has served on the court since 2016. The Newton resident had previously served on the Massachusetts Superior Court.
Earlier in her career, she prosecuted cases in the major crimes and drug units as an assistant U.S. attorney in the District of Massachusetts in the mid 90s under then U.S. Attorney and NAFUSA past president Don Stern before going on to work in the general counsel’s office at Harvard University.
Democratic U.S. Rep. Ayanna Pressley described Budd as “a well-respected, thoughtful and dedicated public servant with a brilliant legal career.”
“As the first Black woman to lead the SJC in the court’s centuries-old history, I have every confidence that she will meet and exceed the history-making expectations her service on the Supreme Court brings,” Pressley said in a news release.
Chief Justice Budd with her dad
Proud “Papa” Budd, a past NAFUSA board member, also served as the United States Associate Attorney General (1992-1993) and is currently senior counsel at Goodwin Proctor LLP.
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