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President Donald Trump plans to nominate Justin Herdman, the top federal prosecutor in Cleveland, as the U.S. attorney in Washington, putting the former Jones Day partner in line to lead an office reeling from the Justice Department leadership's unusual interventions in the cases of Roger Stone and Michael Flynn.

Herdman's nomination was announced Monday, just weeks before the tenure of Timothy Shea, the interim U.S. attorney, was set to expire. Under federal law, his stint as acting U.S. attorney was limited to four months, barring an extension by the district court in Washington, which was widely seen as unlikely.

Herdman was confirmed in 2017 as the U.S. attorney in Cleveland, where he oversees an office of nearly 200 staff tasked with prosecuting federal crimes in northern Ohio. Previously, he was a counsel and then partner at Jones Day, a law firm that has fed multiple lawyers into top government posts in the Trump administration.