Attorney general prepares to fill advisory panel

Prosecutors give Justice Dept. leaders a view from the field

Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. is preparing to announce as early as Monday the administration's appointees to a prestigious panel that advises Justice Department leaders on approaches to combat gang violence, civil rights violations and financial crimes, according to officials familiar with Holder's plans.

The Attorney General's Advisory Committee is a diverse group of federal prosecutors from across the nation, who meet regularly to give department leaders a view from the field.

The Obama administration's relationship with federal prosecutors is being watched closely, in part because of fissures that developed during the Bush years after the 2006 firings of nine U.S. attorneys. Current and former prosecutors say there is always healthy tension between the government lawyers who shoulder the bulk of the Justice Department's work and the political appointees in Washington who seek to shape and manage policy initiatives.

But this time, the rapport may be closer than before because of Holder's experience as a U.S. attorney in the District during the Clinton administration and as a member of the panel that advised then-Attorney General Janet Reno.

Holder said in a statement that he knows "first-hand how important the interaction is between our United States Attorneys and the policy makers in Washington."

Chairing the advisory panel will be B. Todd Jones, U.S. attorney for Minnesota, who was also the state's top prosecutor in the Clinton administration. Jones, who spent years on active and reserve duty in the U.S. Marine Corps, played an important role on the Justice Department transition team.

Other members of the advisory committee are Preet Bharara, the U.S. attorney in the Southern District of New York; Dennis Burke of Arizona; Jenny Durkan of Washington state; Paul J. Fishman of New Jersey; Patrick J. Fitzgerald of Chicago; Neil H. MacBride of the Eastern District of Virginia; Peter F. Neronha of Rhode Island; Joyce White Vance of the Northern District of Alabama; and Channing D. Phillips, acting U.S. attorney in the District of Columbia. John S. Davis, chief of the criminal division of the federal prosecutors' office in Alexandria, who helped convict American John Walker Lindh of aiding Afghanistan's Taliban army, will offer the views of assistant U.S. attorneys on the panel.

The advisory panel reports to Holder through the office of Deputy Attorney General David W. Ogden, who serves as the department's chief operating officer and manages more than 100,000 employees on a day-to-day basis.

In an interview last week, as several U.S. attorneys arrived in the District for orientation sessions for their new jobs, Jones said that he and his colleagues are moving on from the firing scandal during the Bush years. "To quote [musician] Will.i.am, it's a new day," Jones said. "We're looking ahead. We have too much work to do for this to be a drag on us."

After two months as U.S. attorney, Jones, like many of his colleagues, is grappling with several issues: underfunded law enforcement in his state's Indian country, gangs and guns, the looming fraud trial of businessman Tom Petters, and concern in the local Somali American community, in which some young men have traveled to Africa to fight alongside groups affiliated with al-Qaeda.

The administration's pace on nominations and confirmations of U.S. prosecutors this year has frustrated prosecutors and defense lawyers. So far, only 18 out of 93 U.S. attorneys have secured Senate confirmation. Another nominee is awaiting a floor vote, and 11 more require approval by the Judiciary Committee.

Some of the biggest districts in the country, including those of Brooklyn and Miami, are operating with holdovers or acting U.S. attorneys. The lack of momentum on U.S. attorney picks stems in part from a decision not to fire all the Bush holdovers en masse, as happened at the start of the Clinton presidency, but rather to ease into the transition. That course of action won favor from an advocacy group for career prosecutors but has rankled many Democrats, who are eager for a sweeping change.