Spokane native nabbed as U.S. attorney for Eastern District of Washington

Vanessa Waldref will be the first woman to lead the U.S. attorney’s office in Spokane after the Senate confirmed the Spokane native Thursday, according to tweets by the Senate Cloakroom and the U.S. Senate Periodical Press Gallery.

President Joe Biden nominated Waldref in July as U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Washington, which covers the state east of the Cascades. The nation’s 93 U.S. attorneys are responsible for federal criminal prosecutions in their respective districts.

After growing up in northeast Spokane, Waldref earned bachelor’s and law degrees from Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., before returning home to serve as an assistant U.S. attorney in the Eastern District from 2013 to 2020. She has worked as a trial attorney in the Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division since 2020 and has taught as an adjunct professor at Gonzaga Law School since 2015.