Virginia’s Democrat Senators Recommend 4 US Attorney Options to Trump

While Virginia’s current governor is facing more partisan pushback from the Democrat leadership in the General Assembly over his nominees to serve on state boards and commissions in the waning months of his administration (more regarding that issue coming soon to this space), two former Democrat governors have reached across the aisle to make suggestions to President Donald Trump for Virginia’s two open U.S. attorney positions.

It is tradition that, regardless of party, when there are U.S. attorney vacancies in a state, the U.S. senators of that state recommend to the president potential replacements.

Sens. Tim Kaine and Mark Warner have jointly recommended to the president that he hire either Virginia House of Delegates Republican Minority Leader Todd Gilbert of Shenandoah County or former Albemarle County Commonwealth’s Attorney Robert Tracci, a Republican, to serve as the U.S. attorney for the Western District of Virginia.

Tracci is currently senior assistant attorney general and head of the Major Crimes and Emerging Threats Section of the Virginia Attorney General’s Office.

The senators also recommended Michael Gill, assistant counsel for shipbuilder Huntington Ingalls Industries, and Erik Siebert for the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia. Siebert has served in that role since Jan. 21 in an interim capacity.

Long-term Richmond politics-watchers might cravenly think that the recommendation of Gilbert could be motivated by a desire to take one of the GOP’s leaders out of the General Assembly. However, Gilbert said in an interview with the Virginia Scope that he had put his name in for the position, pointing out that he was a “prosecutor in four different jurisdictions over 14 years, and certainly, criminal justice policy has been at the core of my service in the General Assembly since I got there.”

Tracci touted his experience as a prosecutor in the western region of the state when he told The Daily Signal that he had served as a special assistant U.S. attorney for the Western District of Virginia and served in two Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Offices in Albemarle and Louisa Counties, both in the Western District. He said that plus his experience in the Virginia Attorney General’s Office uniquely qualify him to lead the U.S. Attorney’s Office “on Day One.”

The senators’ joint statement on the four candidates doesn’t hint at any other agenda. “We find these four candidates to be exceptionally qualified for the position of U.S. attorney,” they wrote.  

The president will nominate one person for each office. Nominees will be considered first by the Senate Judiciary Committee and then be subject to a confirmation vote in the full Senate.