Andy Luger confirmed to serve a second time as U.S. Attorney for Minnesota

Andy Luger received bipartisan confirmation from the U.S. Senate on Thursday and will return as U.S. Attorney for Minnesota. 

Luger, 62, previously served in the role from 2014 to 2017 when President Donald Trump’s administration asked him and dozens of other federal prosecutors to resign. 

The confirmation vote was 60-to-36.

He was among three finalists named for the nomination after a selection committee vetted potential candidates. The other two finalists were Lola Velazquez-Aguilu, a litigation and investigation counsel for Medtronic, and Surya Saxena, senior associate general counsel at UnitedHealthcare.

“Andy Luger is a dedicated public servant who will work to uphold justice and protect Minnesotans as our United States Attorney. I am confident he will serve our state with distinction and I am proud to have supported him throughout the confirmation process,” said U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, who supported his nomination. 

He also had the backing of Minnesota’s other Democratic senator, Tina Smith.

“I am confident that his experience, dedication to public service, and commitment to justice will help him lead the U.S. Attorney’s office in Minnesota with integrity,” Smith in a statement.

His confirmation vote had been delayed after some pushback from Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who expressed objections to what he called a light sentence for Montez Lee Jr., a 26-year-old Rochester man convicted of setting a deadly fire to a Lake Street pawn shop in 2020. 

Luger did not have a role in the case, but McConnell said in February during a floor speech that he sought assurances from Luger that he would not “continue this jaw-dropping practice and lessen criminals’ sentences so long as the political violence they commit happens to be left-wing.” 

Luger has most recently worked as a partner at Jones Day, where he is a leader of the law firm’s national hate crimes and extremism initiative, according to his bio on the firm’s website.  

Luger is widely respected for successfully prosecuting many high-profile cases, including convicting Danny Heinrich, the killer of Jacob Wetterling, the 11-year-old boy kidnapped more than 30 years ago from St. Joseph. Luger’s office struck a plea agreement in the case, convicting Heinrich of 25 felony counts of federal child pornography charges, in exchange for Heinrich’s confession in the abduction and slaying.

Locally, Luger’s candicacy faced some opposition from Muslim community leaders who drew attention to his championing of the Countering Violent Extremism program, saying it targeted and surveilled Somali youth under the guise of rooting out radicalization.

“Almost every single civil rights organization in the country sent a letter to (former President Barack) Obama and to U.S. attorneys demanding them to end this program, because of not only the civil rights issues, but the direct and indirect results of creating and exploring the Islamophic impact that this program had,” Jaylani Hussein, executive director of CAIR-MN, said in March 2021 when it first became known that Luger was a finalist.

Among those who opposed Luger’s nomination were some DFL state lawmakers led by state Sen. Omar Fateh, DFL-Minneapolis.