Title: U.S. Attorney in Eastern Virginia announces resignation - ABC News
Headings: U.S. Attorney in Eastern Virginia announces resignation
U.S. Attorney in Eastern Virginia announces resignation
Content: Terwilliger, 39, is the youngest U.S. Attorney in the country and has led the office since 2018, but his connections to the office go back to 1999, when he worked there as an intern. He also served for years there as a line prosecutor. It is common for U.S. attorneys to resign their posts during presidential transitions, giving the new president an opportunity to appoint his own prosecutors. The office routinely handles high-profile prosecutions. Last year, the office obtained indictments against accused Islamic state members Alexanda Amon Kotey and El Shafee Elsheikh, British nationals known as the “Beatles” because they were two members of an English-accented foursome that allegedly participated in holding and executing Western hostages. Building the case and bringing the pair to Virginia required years of work, domestically and internationally, with competition from other U.S. Attorney offices looking to build the case. “To have those two individuals sitting in the Eastern District of Virginia — innocent until proven guilty — but to have them here on U.S. soil knowing everything that went into the charges being built, getting the evidence we needed from the U.K. and then the lengths to make sure they were safely in custody during a global pandemic ... Iogistically, that was probably one of most difficult cases I’ve ever seen,” he said. Terwilliger, a Republican whose father, George Terwilliger, was a a deputy attorney general and acting attorney general in GOP administrations, is leaving at a time when the Justice Department faces criticism that it became politicized during the Trump administration and particularly under U.S. Attorney General William Barr. Terwilliger said he expects some people will always hold it against him that he was an appointee of President Donald Trump, but he does not think most people feel that way, and he said his independence as a prosecutor was never compromised. “I didn’t see things done out of politics,” he said in an interview. "