Editor’s note: This commentary is by Thomas D. Anderson, who was the Vermont commissioner of public safety under Gov. Phil Scott from 2017 to 2019 and the U.S. attorney for the District of Vermont from 2006 to 2009 under President George W. Bush. He was an assistant U.S. attorney in Vermont for over 14 years and a deputy state’s attorney in Orleans County for three years. He now lives in Wilmington, North Carolina.
I served as United States attorney for Vermont and as commissioner of public safety for the state of Vermont. I was appointed to these positions with bipartisan support by honorable Republicans: President George Bush and Gov. Phil Scott.
While I have always considered myself a Republican, I am no fan of Donald Trump and very much look forward to his departure from the White House on Jan. 20, 2021. Trump, however, did one good thing for Vermont: With the bipartisan support of Sen. Leahy and Gov. Scott, he appointed Christina Nolan as the U.S. attorney for Vermont.
Vermonters would be well served if Sens. Leahy and Sanders worked with the Biden administration to reappoint U.S. Attorney Nolan, a native Vermonter with deep ties to and love for Vermont.
While it is common for U.S. attorneys to change when the White House changes parties, these are not normal times. The United State is in the midst of a deadly pandemic and the country is divided like no other time since the Civil War. If that dynamic is to change, leaders need to end rigid adherence to “party first” dogma and make appointments as important as the U.S. attorney based on merit and not simply party affiliation. It takes far more to be U.S. attorney than reciting the political platitudes or talking points of the day.
By any measure, U.S. Attorney Nolan has led her office with distinction. She has been nonpartisan, hardworking, impartial, successful and innovative. She has earned the respect and support of law enforcement and her tenure has been uniformly praised by Sen. Leahy, Attorney General TJ Donovan (both Democrats), defense counsel and by Chief U.S. District Court Judge Christina Reiss (an Obama appointee).
Rightfully so. Just look at some of the things she has accomplished:
- She held Purdue Pharma and its cronies responsible for illegally pushing doctors to prescribe more and more of the synthetic opioid OxyContin, which is the main cause of our current heroin epidemic.
- She tirelessly and successfully untangled and pursued the criminal conduct surrounding Jay Peak resort (without her efforts it is unlikely these prosecutions would have gone forward at all).
- She made clear to both in-state and out-of-state heroin/fentanyl dealers that their poisoning of Vermonters with these drugs would be dealt with harshly.
- She prioritized the prosecution of violent criminals and sex traffickers and successfully put a behind bars those trafficking in firearms and those responsible for cruelly victimizing young women.
- She led the Department of Justice efforts to combat sexual harassment in housing during the Covid-19 pandemic across the United States.
- She was a critical member of Gov. Scott’s Opioid Coordination Council, which sought holistic solutions to Vermont’s heroin epidemic.
But U.S. Attorney Nolan’s successes are not limited to just her law enforcement duties. She fully supports and has promoted responsible criminal justice reform and alternatives to incarceration where appropriate. She also knows that the ultimate success to the heroin epidemic is to reduce the demand for such drugs. To this end, U.S Attorney Nolan was instrumental in the recent opening of a groundbreaking recovery program in Lamoille County designed to serve women suffering from substance abuse disorder who have complex trauma histories, such as domestic violence, physical violence, sexual violence, and human trafficking.
Doing what is right and just and adhering to the highest ethical standards is what drives Christina Nolan. It is what makes her a U.S. attorney Vermont can be proud of and it is why she should continue as U.S. attorney under the Biden administration.
