Biden's Pick To Lead One Of The Top Federal Prosecutor's Offices Could Make History

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Damian Williams has been nominated to head the U.S. attorney's office in Manhattan. Williams would be the first Black man to run the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York. / U.S. Attorney's Office via AP

President Biden has nominated Damian Williams as his pick to lead the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York, one of the nation's most high-profile law enforcement departments.

If confirmed, Williams would be the first Black man to lead the prestigious office that covers Manhattan, the Bronx and areas north of New York City, including Westchester County.

The office has been behind several major federal cases in recent years, including the Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell sex trafficking investigation and recent inquiries into the Trump Organization and associates of former President Donald Trump.

Williams, a Harvard University, University of Cambridge and Yale Law School graduate is the son of Jamaican immigrants and from Brooklyn.

He has close ties with the Justice Department in Washington. After law school, Williams clerked for U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland when Garland was a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. He also was a clerk to Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens.

Williams, who currently heads a securities fraud unit in the Southern District of New York, was nominated Tuesday, alongside seven others to serve as U.S. attorneys across the country.

Biden also nominated Carla Freedman to lead the Office of the Northern District of New York and Breon S. Peace to head the Eastern District of New York.

The president 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.

The White House said each nominee was "chosen for their devotion to enforcing the law, their professionalism, their experience and credentials in this field, their dedication to pursuing equal justice for all, and their commitment to the independence of the Department of Justice."

Confirming these picks would also be crucial to the administration's task force to tackle the uptick in gun crime across the country, the White House said.

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