Prosecutor to serve until U.S. Attorney for Oregon named

Associated Press

PORTLAND, Ore. – Scott Asphaug will lead the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Oregon until a new lead prosecutor is appointed by the president and confirmed by the U.S. Senate.

Asphaug was named acting U.S. Attorney on Feb. 28 and on Saturday was appointed interim by Attorney General Merrick B. Garland, The Oregonian/OregonLive reported.

Asphaug has worked for the U.S. Department of Justice for 16 years and also was a Multnomah County prosecutor. He called the appointment “a privilege.”

Oregon’s U.S. senators sent to the White House the names of three finalists for the state’s U.S. Attorney’s job last month.

The three include two prosecutors in the U.S. Attorney’s office in Portland. Assistant U.S. Attorney Craig Gabriel, 50, is the office’s criminal division chief who has worked as a federal prosecutor since 2007 and who has done civil litigation and criminal defense work for two law firms.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Natalie Wight, 47, is deputy chief of the office’s organized and violent crime section. She has been working in the District of Oregon since 2012 and with the U.S. Department of Justice since 2003.

The third finalist is Vivek Kothari, 40, who does civil litigation with the Portland law firm Markowitz Herbold and co-founded the Oregon Clemency Project in 2020. He was also a federal prosecutor in Atlanta for five years.

A selection committee formed by U.S. Sens. Jeff Merkley and Ron Wyden, both Oregon Democrats, picked the three finalists from seven candidates who applied.