DOJ lawyer named new US attorney in Texas after resignation
Associated Press | Hagadone News Network | UPDATED 5 years, 7 months AGO
DALLAS (AP) — Attorney General William Barr has named a Department of Justice lawyer to succeed the top federal prosecutor for East Texas, who abruptly announced his resignation this week.
Stephen Cox, a deputy associate attorney general in Washington, D.C., will take over as acting U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Texas on June 1, according to a Justice Department statement. He will succeed U.S. Attorney Joseph Brown, who said Tuesday that he'd be leaving office at the end of the month without giving a specific explanation for his departure.
Brown, 50, was nominated by President Donald Trump and took office in 2018. His resignation came two months after ProPublica reported that his office clashed with senior Justice Department officials over a potential prosecution of Walmart for its opioid prescription practices. No charges were brought in the case and retail giant has denied that any employee committed a crime.
Cox was reportedly among the officials skeptical of the case against Walmart. After the Justice Department told Brown to halt the criminal investigation of the company, Cox said a parallel civil case was also not ready to proceed, according to ProPublica.
Barr said Cox's “experience in areas ranging from regulatory reform to fraud to corporate compliance, and his reputation for fairness, sound judgment, and management, will serve him well in Eastern Texas.”
Cox attended college and law school in Texas and has since worked in private practice and for the Justice Department, the FBI, and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
After 120 days, acting U.S. attorneys generally require a presidential nomination and Senate confirmation, or federal judges could vote to appoint someone to the position.
ARTICLES BY ASSOCIATED PRESS
Hong Kong police arrest 4 from university student union
HONG KONG (AP) — Four members of a Hong Kong university student union were arrested Wednesday for allegedly advocating terrorism by paying tribute to a person who stabbed a police officer and then killed himself, police said.
For South Sudan mothers, COVID-19 shook a fragile foundation
JUBA, South Sudan (AP) — Paska Itwari Beda knows hunger all too well. The young mother of five children — all of them under age 10 — sometimes survives on one bowl of porridge a day, and her entire family is lucky to scrape together a single daily meal, even with much of the money Beda makes cleaning offices going toward food. She goes to bed hungry in hopes her children won’t have to work or beg like many others in South Sudan, a country only a decade old and already ripped apart by civil war.
For South Sudan mothers, COVID-19 shook a fragile foundation
JUBA, South Sudan (AP) — Paska Itwari Beda knows hunger all too well. The young mother of five children — all of them under age 10 — sometimes survives on one bowl of porridge a day, and her entire family is lucky to scrape together a single daily meal, even with much of the money Beda makes cleaning offices going toward food. She goes to bed hungry in hopes her children won’t have to work or beg like many others in South Sudan, a country only a decade old and already ripped apart by civil war.