Before winning a presidential nomination for one of the four U.S. Attorney positions in Texas, a candidate must first meet with a committee of 35 lawyers who vet applicants for the state's two Republican senators, John Cornyn and Ted Cruz.

So it wasn't much of a surprise recently when President Donald Trump nominated Erin Nealy Cox to be the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Texas. A former federal prosecutor who is currently a senior adviser at a cybersecurity firm, Cox served as a member the senators' Federal Judicial Evaluation Committee (FJEC) until she resigned to apply for the U.S. Attorney position. And she's not the only FJEC member to make that move.

“Erin Nealy Cox will be a stellar United States attorney,” Cruz said. “She is smart, principled and dedicated to the just enforcement of the law, and her background as a federal prosecutor, senior official at the Department of Justice, and cybersecurity expert makes her uniquely qualified to be the chief federal law enforcement officer for the Northern District of Texas.”