Daniel Medwed Featured in GBH News: Reflecting On U.S. Attorney’s Legacy In Massachusetts As Biden Assembles New Administration
While President-elect Joe Biden is in the process of assembling his leadership team in Washington, there’s a lot of chatter within the local legal community about who he will tap to serve as the U.S. Attorney for Massachusetts. One rumored candidate to replace Andrew Lelling is Suffolk County D.A. Rachael Rollins. GBH Morning Edition host Joe Mathieu spoke with Northeastern University law professor and GBH News legal analyst Daniel Medwed to reflect on Lelling’s legacy in the state and share his thoughts on what comes next.
Joe Mathieu: First of all, could Joe Biden simply decide to keep Lelling as our U.S. Attorney? I assume there’s no requirement you have to fire everybody when a new president takes over.
Daniel Medwed: Well, that’s absolutely right. There’s no law or regulation mandating turnover in these positions. It’s more of a norm, or really a matter of pragmatism, that the new commander in chief wants his own people in these positions in order to execute his law enforcement priorities. For what it’s worth, I think Lelling is particularly unlikely to stay in the job because he’s quite conservative, especially for Massachusetts, and he’s stirred up a lot of controversy in his three plus years in that position.