NEW ORLEANS – President Donald Trump recently nominated New Orleans attorney Peter Strasser as his choice for U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Louisiana.
Strasser' s nomination, announced June 20, needs to be approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee and the full U.S. Senate before Strasser can formally fill the role. Duane Evans is serving as interim U.S. attorney after Kenneth Polite resigned last year.
Strasser has gained support for his nomination after Louisiana's two U.S. senators, Bill Cassidy and John Kennedy, both Republicans, have released statements to back the nomination.
Peter Strasser
| Chaffee McCall photo
Strasser is currently a partner at Chaffe McCall law firm. He works in the firm’s government investigations and white-collar criminal defense section as well as the international law section. As a trial lawyer, he also has a broad history of working on lawsuits concerning the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and is a skilled arbitrator with the American Health Lawyers Dispute Resolution Service.
Strasser previously was the assistant U.S. attorney in New Orleans. One of his most notable career moments in that role included serving as prosecutor in the extortion and racketeering case against now former Gov. Edwin Edwards. Edwards was imprisoned in 2002.
Strasser's career includes international experience as he lived overseas for 12 years serving as a Department of Justice legal attache. He has resided in Pakistan, Malawi and Azerbaijan as well as Stuttgart, Germany. There, he was the Balkans and Caucasus anti-corruption adviser to the U.S. European Command.
He is also a member of such organizations as the New Orleans World Trade Center, International Business Committee and the International Senior Lawyers Project of New York and London, a project that works closely with judges and prosecutors in Malawi.