Biden picks acting Massachusetts US attorney to succeed Rollins
First Assistant U.S. attorney for the District of Massachusetts Joshua Levy. REUTERS/Brian Snyder Acquire Licensing Rights
- Acting U.S. attorney Josh Levy in Massachusetts nominated to serve permanently
- Biden also nominated two federal judges in Oklahoma
Oct 18 (Reuters) – President Joe Biden on Wednesday nominated the acting top federal prosecutor in Massachusetts to succeed former U.S. attorney Rachael Rollins, who resigned in May after government watchdog agencies found she engaged in wide-ranging misconduct.
Acting U.S. attorney Joshua Levy was one of eight nominees Biden announced that also include two candidates to be district court judges in Oklahoma and the renominations of two U.S. Sentencing Commission members.
Levy’s nomination comes months after Rollins resigned ahead of the release of a report by the U.S. Department of Justice’s inspector general finding that she improperly used her position to meddle in a local district attorney election by leaking information about a political rival to newspapers.
The investigators said Rollins planted negative information about her successor as Suffolk County district attorney in Boston Globe articles about his handling of a police misconduct probe and then used those stories to try to help spur a Justice Department investigation.
That report, along with another investigation by the U.S. Office of Special Counsel, also documented a series of other ethics lapses by Rollins, who was appointed by Biden. She was the first Black woman to serve as U.S. attorney in Massachusetts.
Levy, a former top white collar defense attorney at Ropes & Gray in Boston, had previously been on a short-list to be Biden’s initial nominee to serve as U.S. attorney, and after Rollins’ Senate confirmation in 2021, he became the first assistant U.S. attorney, the office’s No. 2.
Levy in a statement said he was “humbled and honored” by the nomination.
Biden also nominated Johnny Gogo, a California state court judge to become the top federal prosecutor for the Districts of Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands.
Biden also announced two new nominees to serve as federal judges in the Northern District of Oklahoma, bringing the number of announced federal judicial nominees since he took office to 193.
They include John Russell, a former prosecutor now at the law firm GableGotwals, and Sara Hill, the Cherokee Nation’s former attorney general.
Both have the support of their homestate senators, James Lankford and Markwayne Mullin, who are both Republicans and must return so-called “blue slips” for them to advance in the Senate. Mullin is the second Cherokee Nation member to serve in the Senate.
Biden also re-nominated two of the bipartisan U.S. Sentencing Commission’s seven members, U.S. District Judge Claria Horn Boom of the Eastern and Western Districts of Kentucky, and John Gleeson, a former federal judge now at Debevoise & Plimpton.
The commission’s members serve staggered terms, so while they were confirmed in August 2022 with Biden’s other five nominees, the terms of their seats end on Oct. 31. Both, though, can remain on the job until they are either reconfirmed or the current Congress ends next year.
Read more:
Massachusetts US attorney accused of election meddling and lying
Massachusetts US attorney to resign amid Justice Dept ethics probe
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Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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