Donald Trump’s allies are looking for Maine’s next top federal prosecutor

By Billy Kobin, Bangor Daily News Staff

President-elect Donald Trump will pick Maine’s next top federal prosecutor, and Republicans in the state are working behind the scenes to assemble a list of candidates for him to consider.

These positions often receive less attention than Cabinet or judicial appointments but are still important. U.S. Attorney Darcie McElwee, whom President Joe Biden nominated in 2021, has had to tackle Maine’s opioid epidemic, human trafficking, hate crimes, and illegal marijuana growing operations linked to Chinese organized crime.

After Trump was first elected in 2016, he followed convention by taking input from Maine politicians and the legal community before picking career prosecutor Halsey Frank. This time, the former president has announced a provocative set of Cabinet picks that is challenging Republican senators and leading observers to think the next U.S. attorney may be different.

“I think you’ll see someone really focused on illegal marijuana grows as well as someone who probably speaks a little more ‘tough on crime’ as opposed to southern Maine district attorneys who may be interested in more restorative justice approaches,” said Michael Cianchette, who was former Gov. Paul LePage’s chief lawyer and is a Bangor Daily News columnist.

Republicans in Maine’s legal community are floating names to succeed McElwee. Former Maine House Minority Leader Ken Fredette, R-Newport, who ran unopposed this month for the seat he previously gave up due to term limits, confirmed he has been “approached by some high-ranking Republicans in the state to see if I would be interested in the position.”

Fredette, an attorney in private practice who has also served as a judge advocate general for the military, said he told the Republicans he declined to name that he was also approached about the same role after Trump won the 2016 election.

“First and foremost, my commitment is to my district and the Maine Legislature,” Fredette said. “But certainly I think of myself as a public servant to the extent that if the president were to inquire, certainly I would continue up with those conversations.”

Other names that Republicans have mentioned include Alex Willette, a Maine National Guard judge advocate and former state lawmaker who served in Trump’s first administration as deputy White House political affairs director. 

Willette, who lives in Oakland, said he “certainly would be interested in serving in any capacity” at Trump’s request but declined to say whether others have approached him about the U.S. attorney position.

Darrick Banda, a criminal defense attorney who lives in Winslow and has run for the Maine House of Representatives as a Republican, said “no one’s talked to me about anything.” If Trump’s team reached out, then Banda said he would “strongly consider it.”

McElwee, 51, is a Caribou native who succeeded Halsey Frank as U.S. attorney after serving as an assistant U.S. attorney since 2002. She began her legal career as a prosecutor in Piscataquis and Penobscot counties. She declined comment for this story, with a spokesperson saying Wednesday it is “premature to share any information related to the next administration.”

The tradition is for U.S. attorneys to step aside after a presidential transition. Frank did so in early 2021 at the request of Biden’s acting attorney general. His predecessor, the late Thomas E. Delahanty, was among 46 U.S. attorneys appointed by former President Barack Obama who were asked by Trump’s Justice Department to step down in early 2017.

Senators from the president’s party have provided input on past nominations of prosecutors. U.S. Sen. Susan Collins, a Republican, has not yet received communication from the incoming Trump administration on a process that they want to follow on the U.S. attorney nomination but thinks it will probably come by the end of December, spokesperson Annie Clark said.

Tradition holds that Collins would have a chance to weigh in on any U.S. attorney choice as the sole Republican senator in New England. But the Maine senator voted to convict Trump on an impeachment charge in 2021.

“Her voice will be at the table,” Cianchette said of Collins. “But she’s not a Trump supporter, so it creates a little bit of an interesting approach.”