SAN FRANCISCO —As 46 Obama-era U.S. attorneys were asked to resign from their posts March 10, Brian Stretch, the U.S. attorney for the Northern District of California, was unaffected. Stretch, a career prosecutor who has not been through the Senate confirmation process, remains in place for now, as do the acting top prosecutors in the Eastern and Southern districts of California. In the Central District, meanwhile, Eileen Decker, former President Barack Obama’s pick to head federal law enforcement in the Greater Los Angeles area, was among those pushed out on March 10.
Stretch, who didn’t respond to messages Monday, took the helm of the Northern District office in September after serving as first assistant U.S. attorney under former U.S. Attorney Melinda Haag. Haag, now the global head of the litigation business unit at Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe, said in a phone interview Monday that she was “grateful” that the Northern District office wasn’t “disrupted” by the moves and that she hoped Stretch could remain in office until a new U.S. attorney is confirmed by the Senate. “U.S. attorneys care deeply about their districts and public safety and the relationships they have with these communities,” she said. “They feel bad about leaving all of that in a lurch but they have no choice and I know everybody understands that and nobody blames them,” Haag said.
