The top federal federal law enforcement officer for the Richmond region plans to step down, following in the footsteps of other United States prosecutors who are leaving upon the inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump.

Jessica Aber, U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, told the Washington Post this week that she will resign from her post. Aber was nominated by President Joe Biden in August 2021 and the Senate confirmed her for the position two months later.

Aber’s office has prioritized gun crime, particularly in Richmond, as well as fraud cases, securing white-collar crime convictions involving fraud at the Virginia Department of Health and the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond.

Aber said she felt her resignation was expected by the incoming administration.

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“It’s a political job,” Aber said during the Richmond Police Department’s year-end crime briefing. “President Trump hasn’t indicated explicitly how long, if it all, he would keep the Biden U.S. attorneys, but I decided that I would leave at the end of President Biden’s time.”

Similar moves have occurred when presidential administrations change. The Justice Department in 2021 asked U.S. attorneys appointed by Trump to resign from their jobs as the Biden administration nominated its own nominees. Then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions in 2017 also requested the resignations of U.S. attorneys who were holdovers from the Obama administration.

Trump takes office Monday.

Aber’s focus on gun crime put her at odds with a federal judge last year. A judge threw out one of her gun crime cases on the basis that the Richmond Police Department makes discriminatory stops of Black drivers. The case involved a Black man, Keith Moore, who was stopped by Richmond police for having suspicious plates and found to have a gun in his car.

The case against Moore was dismissed by U.S. Judge John A. Gibney. In a strongly worded opinion, Gibney criticized the Richmond Police Department for predominantly stopping Black men . His criticism was founded on data culled from the Virginia Community Policing Act. The data showed that 77% of the drivers stopped by Richmond police officers were Black.

Aber petitioned Gibney to reconsider the decision . She wrote that his ruling would “rewind progress” made in fighting violent crime in Richmond by diverting officers from high-crime neighborhoods, which overlap with predominantly Black neighborhoods.

Aber was unsuccessful in that effort, although the case has been appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit. A continue of the appeal would now be seen out by a different U.S. attorney. Earlier in her career at the Department of Justice, Aber was one of the lead prosecutors handling the trial of former Gov. Bob McDonnell.

McDonnell was convicted and sentenced to two years in prison for a public corruption scheme. He never served time, as his case was overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2016, when justices had concerns with overly broad jury instructions issued at his trial.

Federal prosecutors Michael Dry, from left, Jessica Aber and Ryan Faulconer head toward the federal courthouse in Richmond on Sept. 3, 2014, while half a block behind them walked former first lady Maureen McDonnell, accompanied by family and attorneys, as the jury continued into its second of deliberations in the federal corruption trial of the former first lady and former Gov. Bob McDonnell.

Aber was also frequently petitioned for help by lawyers for the family of Irvo Otieno , a 28-year-old Henrico County resident who died in custody of the Henrico Sheriff’s Department in 2023.

Federal charges were brought against Derek Chauvin, the Minneapolis police officer who killed George Floyd and against the Memphis police officers convicted of killing of Tyre Nichols. Otieno’s family sought a similar intervention, but Aber was unmoved. She repeatedly declined to comment publicly on the case.

One defendant in the Otieno case went to trial. That defendant, Wavie Jones, was exonerated in a trial that was panned as unprofessional by Otieno’s family, who argued that only Aber’s office was equipped to handle the complexities of Otieno’s death. Instead, the trial was handled by a newly appointed prosecutor in Dinwiddie County with little trial experience.

In her interview with the Washington Post, Aber said that when she applied for the job, she was trying to “be part of a process to help the community restore some trust in the criminal justice system.”

Aber’s office oversees about 300 prosecutors in Alexandria, Richmond, Norfolk and Newport News serving about 6 million residents.

In recent weeks, resignations have been submitted by other federal prosecutors nominated by Biden, including Dawn Ison , of the Eastern District of Michigan; Andrew Luger , of Minnesota; Zachary Myers, of the Southern District of Indiana; and Markenzy Lapointe, of South Florida.

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