Former federal prosecutor yet
to be nominated
Former federal prosecutor John Lausch is President Donald Trump’s pick to serve as the next U.S. attorney in the Chicago-based Northern District of Illinois, sources said.
Lausch, 46, has not been formally nominated, and the White House hasn’t publicly named him. By tradition, Sens. Dick Durbin and Tammy Duckworth can block such a nomination.
The next step is for Lausch to be vetted by a screening committee of legal experts assembled by the two Democratic senators.
Trump’s eventual nominee still would have to go through a confirmation process that could take months, including approval by the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Lausch, who served as an assistant U.S. attorney in Chicago from 1999 until 2010, is now a partner in the law firm Kirkland & Ellis. He emerged as the finalist for the job after initial rounds of vetting, and his name has been passed on to the state’s senators for consideration.
If confirmed, Lausch will succeed Zachary Fardon, who stepped down from the $169,000-per-year post in March after Trump asked for the resignations of all Obama-era U.S. attorney holdovers. Since then, Trump has nominated a smattering of replacements across the country.
Lausch could not be reached for comment. Born and raised in the Joliet area, he was captain of the 1987
He emerged from a short list of potential picks also featuring attorneys Michael Scudder and Andrew Porter.
Maggie Hickey, a top state inspector general under Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner, also had been under consideration and may have been cut from the list because Durbin and Duckworth were keen for a nonpartisan candidate who had not worked for an elected official.
Lausch graduated from Harvard in 1992 and attended law school at Northwestern University. He was admitted to the Illinois bar in 1996, according to the Illinois Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission.
The U.S. attorney’s office in Chicago is one of the busiest in the nation, handling everything from terrorism, gang conspiracies and bank robberies to financial fraud and political corruption.
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