SAN FRANCISCO — It’s official. The Trump administration has selected a Southern California-based private attorney and former prosecutor to lead the Department of Justice’s Bay Area wing.
Craig Harry Missakian, who has been a lawyer for nearly 40 years, is taking command of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, a position with great influence over prosecuting federal cases from the Bay Area to the Oregon border.
He was a Los Angeles County prosecutor in the 1990s, ran as a Republican for a state Assembly seat there in 2000, became a federal prosecutor in the 2000s and currently works in private practice in Pasadena. Missakian issued a statement saying he was “honored” to be Trump’s pick.
“I look forward to working with the talented men and women of the U.S. Attorney’s Office and our federal, state, and local law enforcement partners as well as community leaders to protect public safety and uphold the rule of law,” Missakian said.
As a federal prosecutor, he spent time on the Los Angeles-based Central California District’s integrity and environmental crimes unit, bringing to trial spies, leakers and fraudsters. As a defense attorney, he has taken on occasional high-profile clients, like a water district manager accused of taking bribes. From 2014 to 2016, Missakian served as a deputy chief counsel for the U.S. House of Representatives, including time on the Benghazi Committee that investigated Hillary Clinton.
As both a prosecutor and defense lawyer, Missakian has twice found himself arguing prominent cases that tested the limits of free speech.
In 2018, he successfully petitioned a judge to order the Los Angeles Times to alter a story after one of the newspaper’s sourcing documents — a sealed court record — was accidentally posted to an online docket. Missakian issued a statement after another court walked back its order, which the newspaper argued was unconstitutional. Missakian’s client, a Glendale police officer, had been charged with hiding his ties to the Mexican Mafia and Armenian organized crime.
In 2010, a divided Ninth Circuit overturned a conviction Missakian had secured under the Stolen Valor Act against a water board official who lied about receiving a Medal of Honor when he’d never even served in the U.S. military. Missakian argued that Congress has the authority to protect the integrity of military medals and that deliberate falsehoods were more severe than white lies.
In the 2000s, he prosecuted a Chinese spy who leaked submarine secrets, helped secure an indictment against an ICE file clerk who lied to receive government housing assistance and built the case against comedian and Oakland native Paul Mooney’s grandson, Adonis Gladney, who raked in millions selling counterfeit software, including to the United States Marine Corps, according to court records and published reports.
In 2009, Missakian forced a blogger to apologize to Guns N’ Roses for leaking the rock band’s album online. Missakian requested prison time, arguing the case needed to send a message about piracy, but a judge sentenced the defendant to home detention, probation and an apology.
Last year, as a defense attorney, Missakian defended a fellow lawyer, Fred Minassian, who pleaded guilty to making false statements to the government to thwart an investigation into a fraudulent opioid prescription scheme. Missakian argued for leniency, describing Minassian as an immigrant who “struggled as a boy to make his way” and “devoted himself to helping other immigrants navigate what is often a confusing, opaque, and frightening criminal justice system.”
Missakian is a longtime member of the Armenian Bar Association, which issued a statement praising him as “a respected litigator and proud Armenian American” who “exemplifies integrity, excellence, and public service.”
Missakian will take office May 27, and said he expects to issue a statement detailing his priorities as a prosecutor. For the past eight years, federal prosecutors in the Bay Area have taken on hundreds of drug cases, primarily focused on San Francisco’s fentanyl markets in the Tenderloin neighborhood.
Recently, the office has prosecuted several Antioch and Pittsburg police officers charged in a sprawling misconduct case. A conspiracy and bribery case against former Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao, her longtime romantic partner and the father-and-son duo — David and Andy Duong — who operated Oakland’s contracted recycling company is ongoing, with recent reports suggesting David Duong may be seeking a pardon from Trump.