President Joe Biden nominated Kenneth Polite to run the justice department’s Criminal Division, and former prosecutor and New Jersey attorney general Anne Milgram, as his nominee to run the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), the department’s lead agency for investigating drug trafficking and manufacturing (article available here).
Kenneth Polite is a former Manhattan federal prosecutor who served as U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Louisiana under President Barack Obama, and has called for sweeping changes to cash bail systems.
Milgram, who once declared, “there’s no system that is more old-school and broken and problematic than the criminal justice system,” currently works as a lawyer in private practice, and as a law professor and podcaster. The DEA has been without a Senate-confirmed leader since the Obama administration. Earlier in her career, Milgram worked as an assistant district attorney in Manhattan, and a civil rights prosecutor in the Justice Department.
Two more of the President’s DOJ nominees - Kristen Clarke, nominee to head the Civil Rights Division, and Todd Kim, nominee to lead the Environment and Natural Resources Division - will go before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday.
The President's nominee for the No. 2 and No. 3 spots at the Justice Department, assistant attorney general nominee Lisa Monaco and associate attorney general nominee Vanita Gupta, are still awaiting full confirmation votes in the Senate.