Luger among 46 U.S. attorneys asked to resign

Updated: 6:20 p.m. | Posted: 2:42 p.m.

Minnesota U.S. Attorney Andrew Luger is among 46 federal prosecutors being asked to resign by Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Luger took office under President Obama in February of 2014.

Many of the federal prosecutors who were nominated by former President Barack Obama have already left their positions, but the nearly four dozen who stayed on in the first weeks of the Trump administration have been asked to leave "in order to ensure a uniform transition," Justice Department spokeswoman Sarah Isgur Flores said.

In a statement Friday afternoon, Luger said he had submitted his resignation, effective immediately.

"Serving the people of Minnesota as their United States Attorney has been the most fulfilling and rewarding experience of my professional life," the statement said. He expressed appreciation for the people of the United States Attorney's Office, as well as federal, state and local law enforcement.

Senator Amy Klobuchar nominated Luger and said she will urge that he be renominated. "It's not completely pie in the sky because it does happen," she said. "And in this case, Andy has a lot of support among law enforcement." As a member of the Judiciary committee, Klobuchar said she will have some influence on the decision.

Klobuchar credits Luger with leading the effort to get Danny Heinrich to admit to killing Jacob Wetterling. Heinrich is serving a 20-year sentence on a federal child pornography charge.

Luger's most high profile work involved the prosecutions of young Twin Cities men who were charged with plotting to join the terrorist group ISIS in Syria. Six pleaded guilty, three were convicted at trial, and all nine were sentenced late last year. Authorities believe two others charged in the case made it to Syria.

Under Luger's watch, Minnesota became a leader in the number of ISIS-related investigations, second only to New York, according to the most recent figures from George Washington University's Center for Cyber and Homeland Security. All together, 14 Minnesotans have been charged with offenses related to the Islamic State.

At the same time his office was taking on suspected terrorists, though, Luger aimed to deter young Somali-Americans from violent extremism. Working with community activists, he championed a pilot project called Building Community Resilience, which aimed to bolster social service programs ranging from mentoring to after-school programs.

In 2015, Luger and other leaders from Minnesota went to Washington, D.C. to share their strategy for fighting extremism at President Obama's White House Summit on Countering Violent Extremism.

But Somali Minnesotans were hotly divided on whether Luger should be involved with those efforts.

Some mosque leaders and the Council on American-Islamic Relations, for example, said the program stigmatized Somali youth, and worried about government overreach.

Luger's wife, Ellen Goldberg Luger, helped host a fundraiser for Hillary Clinton at their home during the campaign.

It is customary, though not automatic, for the country's 93 U.S. attorneys to leave their positions once a new president is in office. The Obama administration allowed political appointees of President George W. Bush to serve until their replacement had been nominated and confirmed.

"Until the new U.S. attorneys are confirmed, the dedicated career prosecutors in our U.S. attorney's offices will continue the great work of the department in investigating, prosecuting and deterring the most violent offenders," Isgur Flores said in a statement.

The federal prosecutors are nominated by the president, generally upon the recommendation of a home-state senator.

One U.S. attorney appointed by Bush, Rod Rosenstein of Maryland, remained on the job for the entire Obama administration and is the current nominee for deputy attorney general.

U.S. attorneys are responsible for prosecuting federal crimes in the territories they oversee. They report to Justice Department leadership in Washington, and their priorities are expected to be in line with those of the attorney general.