Published on: Wednesday, August 11, 2021

President Joe Biden on Tuesday announced his nominees to lead high-profile U.S. Attorney offices in Manhattan and Brooklyn, and six other offices around the country (article available here).

Biden picked Damian Williams for the top spot in Manhattan’s Southern District of New York, and Breon Peace to head Brooklyn’s Eastern District of New York. Both men are Black, and Williams would be the first Black person to run the office that covers Manhattan, the Bronx and areas north of New York City, including Westchester County.

Williams, a Harvard University, University of Cambridge, and Yale Law School grad is currently chief of the securities and commodities task force in the Southern District office, where he oversees more than 20 prosecutors.

Peace worked in the Eastern District office from 2000 to 2002, under former Attorney General Loretta Lynch when she was the U.S. attorney there.

Biden also nominated Carla Freedman to lead the Office of the Northern District of New York.

For Virginia, Biden picked Jessica D. Aber as the U.S. Attorney nominee for the Eastern District of Virginia; William J. Ihlenfeld, II to the Northern District of West Virginia; Christopher Kavanaugh to the Western District of Virginia and William Thompson to the Southern District of West Virginia.

Darcie McElwee was nominated to lead the District of Maine.