In a quiet San Francisco courtroom Tuesday, a federal judge swore in Craig Missakian as the new US Attorney for the Northern District of California. Unlike his recent predecessors of both major political parties, Missakian is an outsider, meaning not from the Bay Area. (He comes from Pasadena.) Which might explain why, also unlike his predecessors, there were just a few people in attendance at his swearing in: There was none of the usual ceremony, none of the nostalgic mingling of lawyers and judges, no speeches, and no food. Also, there was no press.
From his new perch on the 11th floor of the federal building on Golden Gate Avenue, Missakian will wield enormous power as he directs how the office prosecutes federal civil and criminal cases, including white collar prosecutions and, of utmost concern now, immigration cases. At a first glance, Misssakian doesn’t look to be a typical Trump 2.0 appointee: He’s not a Fox News mainstay, a reality TV star, or much of a MAGA mouthpiece. In fact, his career up to this point shows a keen interest in the rule of law and concern about the truth.
Perhaps this is why there’s been a sense of cautious optimism inside and outside the courthouse.
“I think people now are breathing a little sigh of relief,” said one former prosecutor who worked at the US Attorney’s office, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “This is a lot better than it could’ve been.” At the same time, the lawyer added, Missakian is something of an unknown. “No one’s ever seen or heard of him up here. People don’t know much about him. It’s going to be, ‘Wait and see.’”
As the Trump administration’s pick to be the top federal law enforcement official in the region, Missakian may find himself compelled to do the president’s bidding — whatever that means. Since the election, lawyers at the US Attorney’s office have been dreading exactly who (toady? bully? enforcer?) Trump might appoint to inflict his Constitution-and-norm-busting agenda in San Francisco and beyond. There’s also the fact that Missakian was pushed through by US Attorney General and Trump acolyte Pam Bondi, bypassing the normal nomination process requiring Senate approval.
Add to that the question of what, exactly, Missakian has done to earn the job. He served as a state prosecutor in Los Angeles for three years in the 1990s, and for nine years as a federal prosecutor in the U.S. Attorney’s Office, also in L.A., from 2001 to 2010. So he’s had his share of Justice Department experience, under mostly Republican US Attorneys General.
Missakian grew up in the Los Angeles suburb of Glendale, according to the Los Angeles Times. He earned his bachelor’s degree from the University of Southern California, and law degree from Georgetown University Law Center. Missakian, through Michelle Lo, a spokeswoman for the US Attorney’s Office in San Francisco, declined to disclose his age or any other personal information. He declined to comment for this story.
The press release announcing Missakian’s appointment cites his involvement in the prosecution of Chi Mak, a Chinese-American engineer convicted in 2007 of stealing US military secrets for China. More recently, from 2014 to 2016, Missakian served on the Republican House committee investigation of the 2012 terrorist attack in Benghazi. Perhaps it was this partisan pursuit, in particular its targeting of then-presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, that Trump or his advisors found most appealing in Missakian’s resume.
But for much of the last decade, Missakian has worked as a private attorney. Federal court records reveal his handling of or involvement in more than 200 cases over that period, but few in the last couple years. In one, he represented Jun Liu, who agreed last year to plead guilty to illegal cigarette trafficking and pay restitution of $177,000 — a small-time case, and certainly not US Attorney material.
The Armenian Bar Association, a group representing lawyers of Armenian descent, said in a release that it was “filled with joy and flush with pride” at Missakian’s nomination. Legal experts said it’s tough for an outsider to be an effective US Attorney, because they don’t know the local lawyers working inside or outside the office, or judges — they don’t come in with the trust or relationships required to move the office forward.
“There are lawyers out there that don’t have to say much,” the former prosecutor said, referring to attorneys who hold sway inside and outside of courtrooms. He pointed to the big example of Clarence Darrow, and local law legends like John Keker, James Brosnahan, or Cris Arguedas as attorneys whose reputations precede them in court. “But he doesn’t strike me as one of those.”
A much older case that Missakian prosecuted, and ultimately lost, may be the most revealing of his motivations. It may also offer the biggest reason for hope. In it, Missakian won the conviction of Xavier Alvarez, who had won a seat as a municipal water board director in 2007, relying in part on lies about his service as a US Marine (aka “stolen valor”).
Alvarez was charged with, and convicted of, falsely claiming that he had been awarded the Medal of Honor. Though a San Francisco-based federal appeals court agreed in 2011 that Alvarez had made “a series of bizarre lies,” it overturned his conviction, based on the grounds that his lies were a protected form of free speech.
Missakian wrote a telling 2012 letter to a legal newspaper, the Los Angeles Daily Journal, refuting an argument that the appeals court decision allowing politicians to lie about receiving the Medal of Honor makes public debate more robust. “Just ask those who voted for Alvarez believing him to be a war hero,” Missakian wrote. “Politicians who lie to voters not only subvert the political process, as Alvarez did, but also the very search for the truth that the First Amendment makes possible.”
The Trump administration, in selecting Missakian, likely didn’t read that letter, and might not care if it did. But his firmly held position that lying politicians subvert the political process is squarely at odds with the administration of the president that appointed him, whose political career (as was his business career before it) was built on what ex-advisor Kellyanne Conway called “alternative facts.”
For all his hoped-for promise of normalcy, Missakian’s tenure could be short-lived. Because he was appointed, and not nominated and confirmed, he must either go through the more formal process or win the approval of the federal court in the same district he serves after 120 days. If the court doesn’t approve Missakian, it can choose someone else.
Rory Little, a professor at UC Law San Francisco and a former prosecutor in the US Attorney’s Office, doesn’t think that’s likely.
“That will never happen,” Little said. “The White House is not going to let a bench that they think is controlled by Democrats make that appointment.”
A cautionary tale for the Trump administration arose at the US Attorney’s Office in Washington, D.C., Little said.
“Let’s just say this guy looks better, simply by comparison, to the guy who was nominated as US Attorney in DC”—that would be Ed Martin— “who turned out to be truly a crazy guy.”
Martin wasn’t going to get confirmed, Little said, “and they got rid of him.”
Little, however, is willing to give Missakian some time to prove himself. “It’s my hope that everybody will give him a good first chance,” Little said. “I would hope the office would react with open arms, and the judges would react with open arms, and give whoever this guy is a chance to see how he does.”
