The Eastern District of Virginia has a history of prosecuting cases with national and international resonance. Terrorism cases connected to 9/11 and a recent Smithfield bomb-making case have moved through the office.
Now, Lindsey Halligan, formerly a part of President Donald Trump’s personal legal team who doesn’t have prosecutorial experience, is leading the district.
University of Richmond law professor Carl Tobias says some personnel changes on the cusp of new presidential administrations can be seen as part of the transition, but what’s happened in Virginia is different.
“They've essentially decimated the third most important district in the country,” according to Tobias.
Trump’s first appointee, Erik Siebert, resigned as the Eastern District’s U.S. Attorney in late September, reportedly over declining to indict former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James. Another attorney briefly ran the office before Halligan was appointed.
In all, the district’s seen four top prosecutors in the job since the beginning of the year. Most recently, two prosecutors were fired on Friday.
Tobias says decades of experience has been lost.
"Especially the career prosecutors, they've lost a lot of that expertise which has been built up over decades," Tobias says. "That's a real loss and that loss goes directly to those areas I just talked about, which are critical to protecting the country and protecting the citizens."
After being on the job for a month in the Western District, former Republican Del. Todd Gilbert resigned his position. Robert Tracci is now U.S. Attorney there.
The Department of Justice and spokespersons in both Virginia districts didn’t respond to requests seeking information about vacancies in their offices.
This report, provided by Virginia Public Radio, was made possible with support from the Virginia Education Association.