BALTIMORE — President-elect Donald Trump has picked a slew of news-making Cabinet appointees and is expected to turn his attention to state-based appointees, including U.S. attorneys, in the coming weeks.

Though there’s no requirement to replace current U.S. Attorney for Maryland, Erek Barron, U.S. attorneys over the past 50 years typically have been ordered or asked to tender their resignations when a new president is elected, said Carl Tobias, a professor at the University of Richmond School of Law. One exception was Maryland U.S. Attorney Rod Rosenstein, who was first nominated by Republican George W. Bush in 2005, and remained in the office through the presidency of Barack Obama, until becoming deputy attorney general under Donald Trump in 2017.

Tobias doesn’t expect a similar holdover here.

“My sense of this administration is that they’re likely to either order or ask for present U.S. attorneys appointed by Biden to tender their resignations,” Tobias said. “From everything they’ve said… they want to clean house at the Justice Department. So we’ll see what they do.”

Barron, who was nominated by President Joe Biden, declined to comment for the story.

Among those interested in the U.S. attorney position are Maryland lawyer Andrew White, who’s worked on litigation involving high-profile political figures, including former Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh, and hundreds of state and federal cases over his decades-long career, and former Maryland delegate and private-practice attorney Dan Cox, who also campaigned as the Republican nominee for governor in 2022.

Prior experience

White’s past experience includes serving as senior litigation advisor to President Bill Clinton’s Independent Counsel during the investigation into Clinton’s relationship with White House intern Monica Lewinsky. He also represented former Mayor Catherine Pugh, who pleaded guilty to federal conspiracy and tax evasion charges in 2019. White previously served as an assistant U.S. Attorney in Maryland.

Cox was endorsed by Trump for his gubernatorial run. This year, he lost the 2024 Republican primary for Maryland’s 6th Congressional District. As an attorney, he recently joined a lawsuit against the U.S. government involving an MS-13 gang member who pleaded guilty to killing a 20-year-old woman, Kayla Hamilton, after illegally crossing the U.S. southern border.

Cox has been criticized in the past for questioning the results of the 2020 election. He told The Sun it’s important that elections are “transparent” and that if he’s selected as U.S. attorney, he will “make sure that everyone has access to vote and that everyone knows that their rights to vote will be upheld equally.”

Asked whether White or Cox are being considered for U.S. attorney in Maryland, a spokeswoman for the Trump-Vance Transition team said in an emailed statement that Trump “is making decisions on who will serve in his second Administration. Those decisions will be announced when they are made.”

‘A very good lawyer’

White’s time at the U.S. attorney’s office overlapped in the late 1990s with that of Rosenstein, who later served as U.S. deputy attorney general under Trump.

“He’s a very good lawyer,” Rosenstein said of White. “He’s very charismatic, so he works well with colleagues and with witnesses, and gets along well with judges … and looks at things not just from an intellectual perspective, but from a practical perspective.”

Having a long career in Maryland also means White has “a lot of ties throughout the community,” Rosenstein added. White declined comment for the story.

Making communities ‘safe again’

Cox told The Baltimore Sun he would consider it an honor to be selected for the U.S. Attorney position, and that he intends to “Make America Safe Again.” He noted the state’s problems with sex trafficking and criminal gangs, including MS-13.

“I would intend to partner with the county state’s attorney and the city state’s attorney to do everything I can in the office to make sure that we target those cartels and we make our streets and our communities safe again for everyone,” he said.

Annapolis-based attorney Ed Hartman said he met Cox during their “COVID battles” — litigation against various COVID-19-related government mandates — including Cox’s challenge to former Republican Gov. Larry Hogan’s executive orders restricting business operations and other activities in order to slow the virus’s spread.

Later on, Hartman represented Cox’s gubernatorial campaign in its challenge to the Maryland State Board of Elections over early counting of mail-in ballots, which election officials argued was necessary to meet certification deadlines, and which Cox argued was unconstitutional. An appeals court sided with the Board.

“I know him to be an honorable man, willing to and capable of acting on behalf of all Maryland residents,” Hartman said of Cox in an email.

There are a few important characteristics that make for an effective U.S. attorney, said Rosenstein, who was tasked with interviewing U.S. attorney candidates during Trump’s first term. Those include legal expertise, experience in federal court, established reputation in the legal community, management skills and public relations proficiency.

“Because it’s a political appointment, often people who get the jobs have political connections. And that’s fine, but it’s really important that the people that you’re considering for these jobs meet all the necessary criteria,” Rosenstein said.

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