Federal Prosecutor For Western District Of Wisconsin Resigns

As requested, John Vaudreuil has resigned as U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Wisconsin after 37 years of working with the office.

On Friday, Attorney General Jeff Sessions asked for the resignations of all 46 U.S. attorneys.

Vaudreuil, 62, resigned Monday. He was hired as an assistant U.S. attorney in the Western District shortly after passing his bar exam in 1980. In 2010, President Barack Obama appointed him U.S. Attorney.

Community outreach has been his proudest achievement, said Vaudreuil, who grew up in the northern Wisconsin communities of Rice Lake and Hayward.

"The thing I am most proud of is having this office reach out to all groups who might be targets of hate," he said, "From the Jewish community to the Muslim-American community to our Native Americans to our LGBT communities, and really trying to make sure that bridges were built between the United States Department of Justice and those communities."

Vaudreuil said as a lawyer he is disturbed by the reported up-tick in hate crimes across the nation since the November election.

"It is very, very, very sad," he said. "There's a lot of rhetoric in the country, a lot of angry rhetoric. And I've said this many times. Our real enemy is not somebody like ISIL.Our enemy in this country is fear, it's anger and it's confusion … The anger of our political rhetoric to a certain extent leads to that."

Vaudreuil said he would not speculate on why all 46 U.S. attorneys were asked to resign, except to say "the President certainly has that authority, and he decided to exercise it at that time."

It is customary for a new presidential administration to clear out U.S. attorneys and replace them with their own nominees, Sessions' request Friday came earlier than some expected, the Associated Press reported.

First assistant Jeffrey Anderson will lead the Western District office until the U.S. Senate confirms a replacement.

Last Update: Mar 15, 2017 1:33 pm CDT