Trump’s DOJ Criminal Chief Pick Says He Didn’t Seek Position

The White House pick to lead the Justice Department’s 1,100-employee criminal prosecution arm said he never applied for the post and had interviewed for a US attorney opening instead.

“During the interview process, the Administration decided I would be a better fit as the Assistant Attorney General of the Criminal Division,” Tysen Duva, a veteran line prosecutor without managerial experience, said in written responses to senators considering his nomination. “I am not privy as to how that decision was made.”

Duva’s selection to helm a large bureaucracy responsible for a wide range of white-collar and violent crime cases surprised DOJ veterans and some who know him well from an 18-year career as a Jacksonville, Fla.-based federal prosecutor pursuing complex public corruption and fraud matters. While he’s regarded in the central Florida legal community as a savvy prosecutor, Duva lacks the name recognition of prior Criminal Division leaders who had careers as US attorneys, Big Law practice leaders, or in other roles at DOJ headquarters.

In his 56 pages of responses to questions from Senate Judiciary Committee members—almost entirely Democrats—Duva said administration officials interviewed him about general DOJ leadership positions, including for US attorney in the Middle District of Florida where he’s been based as an assistant US attorney. The committee published the document Tuesday.

Following up on an Oct. 22 confirmation hearing, he provided a fuller picture of how his unexpected nomination came to be as the panel prepares to vote on whether to advance his nomination to the Senate floor. A vote is scheduled for Thursday but will likely move to a later date under committee custom.

Duva also pushed back on suggestions from Democrats that he may lack the leadership acumen to step into the Criminal Division role. Duva said he’s had two stints mentoring and training prosecutors as the senior litigation counsel in his district.

He was also pressed to provide details about his pre-nomination meeting with President Donald Trump in April and his connections to White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, both of which were first reported by Bloomberg Law. Duva said he only met with the president once—not at least twice as lawyers who know him told Bloomberg Law in August. He declined to divulge details of the meeting but said he didn’t make promises to Trump, nor was the Criminal Division job even discussed.

He confirmed the report’s details about meeting Wiles when he interviewed her as a witness in a public corruption trial but downplayed his ties to Trump’s chief of staff. He emphasized that he’d make charging decisions independent of politics or White House intervention.

“The relationship was/is purely professional in nature,” Duva said, describing multiple interviews he conducted with her for two trials, one of which included her as a witness. “My surmise is that Ms. Wiles evaluated how I handled those situations and developed a viewpoint of my competence and ability.”

Duva was also asked to provide more specifics on a letter he submitted to the committee correcting his hearing testimony that DOJ had rescinded its policy governing communications with the White House about ongoing cases. Sen. Dick Durbin (Ill.), the panel’s top Democrat, questioned how Duva’s acknowledgment that DOJ’s prior policy remains in place squares with the White House’s own guidelines, which the Washington Post reported in February were revised to explicitly give President Trump broad authority to discuss matters with the attorney general.

He evaded Durbin’s question as to whether DOJ and the White House have consistent policies about communicating with one another, responding, “I will follow all applicable Department policies regarding communications with the White House.”