There’s new leadership in charge of the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Vermont, though President Donald Trump has not yet appointed anyone to run the place on a permanent basis and the title of the person in charge keeps changing.
At the moment, the U.S. Department of Justice Department website lists Jonathan Ophardt, a longtime prosecutor, as the office’s “leadership” and this time the person in the top role has the title “Criminal Chief.”
It’s unclear why Trump, since taking office, has not appointed anyone to be U.S. Attorney for Vermont, a position that requires the confirmation by the U.S. Senate.
Until last week, it was Michael Drescher in the top prosecutor role for Vermont, under the title “First Assistant Attorney.” All that changed when Gov. Phil Scott appointed him last week to the Vermont Supreme Court.
On Tuesday, Drescher told state Senate lawmakers considering his confirmation that he resigned from his federal prosecutor post Friday.
“I did that because, in order to be able to speak freely at this hearing, I think I needed to be unencumbered by being employed by the Department of Justice,” Drescher told committee members of his decision to step down from overseeing the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Vermont.
Even before Drescher stepped down, the U.S. Department of Justice website listed the position of U.S. Attorney for Vermont — the top federal prosecutor in the state — as vacant for the past several weeks, even though the website also listed him in the top spot under the First Assistant Attorney title.
Elisabeth St. Onge, a spokesperson for U.S. Sen. Peter Welch, D-Vermont, stated in an email Tuesday that “Senator Welch is aware of the vacancy in Vermont and is working to address it.”
Neither the office nor the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington has made any public announcement about the leadership change in Vermont. The office is responsible for prosecuting federal crimes and immigration law in the state as well as representing the United States in civil matters.
Ophardt, who held the role as acting U.S. Attorney for Vermont for nearly a year in 2021, could not be reached this week for comment. Fabienne Boisvert-DeFazio, a spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Vermont, declined to comment this week.
“The U.S. Attorney’s Office has no comment and we will refer you to the Office of Public Affairs at the U.S. Department of Justice,” Boisvert-DeFazio wrote in an email to VTDigger this week in response to questions about the office’s leadership.
The U.S. Department of Justice did not respond Tuesday to requests for comment.
The position of U.S. Attorney for Vermont is a presidential appointment.
Drescher had held the role of acting U.S. Attorney for Vermont since Trump took office last January. Then in November, after Drescher served the maximum amount of time allowed by law in that acting role, his title changed to First Assistant U.S. Attorney, though he was still in charge of overseeing the office in Vermont.
That was until his resignation Friday.
Carl Tobias, a University of Richmond law professor who tracks U.S. attorney and judicial nominations, told VTDigger last month that he wasn’t sure why Trump doesn’t simply nominate a U.S. attorney for Vermont and go through the U.S. Senate confirmation process.
It could be, Tobias said, that the president wants to bypass the U.S. Senate confirmation process or that he hasn’t found someone he wants to formally name to the post permanently.
Vermont isn’t the only federal district in the country without a Senate-confirmed U.S. attorney running the office. In addition to Vermont, six other federal district offices are listed on the U.S. Department of Justice website as vacant. There are many more federal districts run by either interim or acting U.S. attorneys.
The situation has led to confusion and several court cases across the nation regarding who is legally enforcing federal law.
