The Trump administration has nominated a new U.S. attorney for the Philly region
David Metcalf, 39, is a former Justice Department lawyer who was also a federal prosecutor in Philadelphia and Maryland.
President Donald Trump’s administration has named its nominee to serve as U.S. attorney for the Philadelphia region, the latest in a series of changes rippling through the nation’s federal law enforcement agencies.
David Metcalf, 39, a former Justice Department lawyer who has also previously served as a federal prosecutor in Philadelphia and Maryland, has been tapped to serve as the chief prosecutor in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, the White House said Tuesday. If confirmed by the U.S. Senate, Metcalf will oversee about 140 lawyers responsible for prosecuting a variety of federal cases across a nine-county region from Philadelphia to Allentown and west past Reading.
Carrie Adamowski, a spokesperson for the region’s U.S. Attorney’s Office, said that Metcalf had initially been nominated to serve as the office’s interim leader, and that he was sworn into that role late Monday evening. But shortly after 9 a.m. Tuesday — Metcalf’s first day in the office, Adamowski said — the White House announced that it was nominating Metcalf to be its full-time nominee and serve a four-year term.
Metcalf worked as an assistant U.S. attorney in Philadelphia from 2020 to 2022, and also served in various capacities in the Justice Department in Washington. In one of his stints there, in 2020, he served as chief of staff to a prosecutor who was said to have pushed for a more lenient sentence for political operative and longtime Trump ally Roger Stone.
Trump ultimately commuted Stone’s sentence before Stone reported to prison. A Justice Department investigation later said “ineffectual” leadership by Metcalf’s boss — and not political interference — was the reason prosecutors changed course on Stone’s sentencing recommendation.
Metcalf will be the third person to lead the Philadelphia region’s U.S. Attorney’s Office in the last month. Former U.S. Attorney Jacqueline C. Romero, who was appointed in 2022 by then-President Joe Biden, left the role in February. Her successor, Nelson S.T. Thayer Jr., an office veteran and career prosecutor, then served as acting U.S. attorney until Metcalf’s arrival.
Turnover in U.S. attorney’s offices is not uncommon after new presidents take office, and that has been especially true since Trump was sworn in earlier this year. Trump, a former federal defendant who has repeatedly complained that prosecutors have acted in ways that have been politically motivated or corrupt, said in February that he was terminating all remaining “Biden era” U.S. attorneys in an effort to “clean house.”
Interim top prosecutors have since been appointed in jurisdictions including Maryland and New Jersey, and the White House said Tuesday it had nominated prosecutors to oversee offices in the District of Columbia, southern Florida, and parts of New York. Those moves have come on top of changes roiling the Justice Department, where scores of lawyers have been demoted or fired in recent weeks — some due to clashes over how ongoing criminal cases should be handled.
In Metcalf’s case, it was not immediately clear how or if his nomination had been communicated to local stakeholders in advance. The office of U.S. Sen. Dave McCormick (R., Pa.) had previously established commissions to identify candidates to serve as full-time U.S. attorneys in each of the state’s three districts, and said it expected the commissions to make final recommendations about nominees “in the next few months.”
McCormick said in a statement Wednesday that the Trump administration “informed us earlier this week of its desire to accelerate this process for the Eastern District” and nominate Metcalf. McCormick said he didn’t know Metcalf, but looked forward to meeting him and “exploring his qualifications for this important role.”
The Eastern District is the busiest in Pennsylvania and one of the largest in the country. Prosecutors there oversee cases involving violent crime, drug trafficking, political corruption, cybercrime, tax fraud, and terrorism, as well as civil cases involving allegations of fraud, discrimination, and civil rights violations.