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.

In 2018, Herdman reported receiving a $405,000 severance payment from Jones Day, where he had worked for a couple of years in the white-collar practice before his nomination to lead the U.S. attorney's office for the Northern District of Ohio.

That severance amount came on top of $928,000 in partnership share he reported receiving from Jones Day, as recorded on his 2017 and 2018 financial disclosures. Those disclosures are mandatory filings that many executive branch nominees must file as part of the confirmation process.

At Jones Day, Herdman said he counseled a number of corporate clients, including Volkswagen AG; Owens Corning; Jones Lang Lasalle Inc.; and Cardinal Health. Herdman declined to identify four confidential clients that were "subject to non-public investigations." From 2015 to 2017, Herdman, a Harvard Law School graduate, served an uncompensated role as an adjunct professor at Case Western Reserve University School of Law.

If confirmed, Herdman would take charge of the largest U.S. attorney's office in the country, replacing Shea after a rocky tenure bookended by controversial moves in cases inherited from former Special Counsel Robert Muelller III. Shea is set to become acting administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration.

In early February, within weeks of Shea being named acting U.S. attorney, U.S. Attorney General William Barr stepped into the prosecution of Roger Stone, overruling career prosecutors to suggest a more lenient sentence for Trump's longtime friend and adviser. Four career prosecutors withdrew from the case in apparent protest of that move, and one resigned from the Justice Department entirely.

More recently, the Justice Department moved to dismiss the prosecution of Michael Flynn, the former Trump national security adviser who twice pleaded guilty to lying to federal investigators about his past communications with the Russian ambassador to the U.S. The motion to dismiss was signed only by Shea, who was previously a close aide to Barr.

In both instances, Barr was criticized for undermining cases brought as part of the Russia investigation to the benefit of Trump's political allies. Barr has denied any wrongdoing. He recently called the Flynn case an "injustice."

Stone was sentenced to more than three years in prison and is now appealing his conviction on charges he lied to investigators, obstructed a congressional inquiry and intimidated a witness. In the Flynn case, Judge Emmet Sullivan recently appointed Debevoise & Plimpton partner John Gleeson, a former federal judge in Brooklyn, to oppose the Justice Department's motion to dismiss.

"Justin has taken an increasing role in the leadership of the Department and this nomination is a reflection his sharp intellect, sound judgment, and dedication to the mission of the Department of Justice," Barr said in a statement Monday. "Justin has proven himself to be a fair prosecutor, capable litigator, and excellent manager, and I look forward to his confirmation by the Senate for this important position."

In 2017, Steven Dettelbach, who served as an Obama-era U.S. attorney in Ohio, described Herdman as "a brilliant, determined and independent person, and I think he'll make a great prosecutor."

At the time, Ohio's two U.S. senators—Rob Portman, the Republican, and Democrat Sherrod Brown—praised Herdman's nomination to the Cleveland U.S. attorney's office post.

Brown said in a statement then that Herdman "has the experience and know-how to tackle the tough issues facing Ohioans—especially the important task of overseeing the consent decree in Cleveland and working with local stakeholders in addressing the opioid crisis."

Herdman succeeded former U.S. attorney Carole Rendon, an Obama appointee who is now a white-collar partner at Baker Hostetler.

Herdman's nomination will go before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, which met recently for the first time in the virus era for a confirmation hearing for the Trump administration's pick for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.

 

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