U.S. Attorney Andrew Luger prepares to leave office while GOP readies candidates for Trump to consider

Three decades ago, Andrew Luger’s biggest worry when he left his federal prosecutor job in Brooklyn to join the U.S. Attorney’s Office in his wife’s native Minneapolis was that he’d be bored here.

Yet during two stints as the state’s top federal prosecutor — first from 2014-17 and now since 2022 — some of the state’s most profound criminal cases have unfolded under his watch. His first term was marked by international terrorism recruitment investigations and the prosecution of Jacob Wetterling’s killer. Luger’s second will be defined by a novel approach in going after street gangs and a still-swelling array of pandemic and health care fraud cases.

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Luger said he will step down before President-elect Donald Trump is sworn in Jan. 20, and he expects many of his Biden-appointed peers to do the same. His resignation will avoid a repeat of 2017 when Luger was stunned via a wave of Friday firings early in Trump’s first term.

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Multiple sources told the Minnesota Star Tribune that those being considered to succeed Luger include Erica MacDonald, whom Trump first appointed as U.S. attorney in 2018. Joe Teirab, an ex-federal prosecutor and Republican defeated by Rep. Angie Craig, D-Minn., in November is also in the mix, as are Minneapolis attorney Ronald Schutz and Maple Grove attorney Ryan Wilson, who narrowly lost his 2022 race for state auditor as a Republican. Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph Thompson, who has led the office’s Feeding Our Future prosecution and its ongoing probe into fraud suspicions at some Minnesota autism centers, is also said to have applied ahead of last week’s deadline.

Sources did not identify a front-runner as the application window closed Friday.

https://www.startribune.com/us-attorney-andrew-luger-prepares-to-leave-office-while-gop-readies-candidates-for-trump-to-consider/601198385