While President Donald Trump has been criticized for his pressuring of Justice officials like former Attorney General Jeff Sessions and others, he has actually selected highly qualified people for vacancies in the Department. That was the case with Attorney Bill Barr and that is the case with the nomination this week of U.S. Attorney Jessie Liu as Associate Attorney General of the United States. Liu, 46, is an exceptionally well qualified nominee and, just as Trump has been rightfully criticized for some of his actions, he should be praised for this nomination. (For full disclosure, Liu is married to one of my colleagues, Michael Abramowicz.)

Liu’s background is personally familiar. She clerked on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit (as I did) and became a partner at Jenner & Block (where I also worked before my clerkship).

She received her undergraduate degree summa cum laude from Harvard in 1995 in literature and her J.D.  from Yale in 1998.

She has a wide array of experience including work as deputy general counsel at Treasury as well has serving stints as an assistant U.S. attorney in the District of Columbia; deputy chief of staff in the National Security Division at Justice and Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the  Civil Rights Division. After working on the transition team for Trump, she was made U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia.

She is a stellar choice for the position.