President Joe Biden has nominated Ryan K. Buchanan for the job of US Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia which includes Chattooga County.
The Northern District of Georgia U.S. attorney position has also been of political interest as it has been filled by three different people just this year.
In January, it was held by Trump’s 2017 appointee, Byung “BJay” Pak, a former Republican legislator who made history as the first-ever Korean American to hold the position of U.S. attorney.
Pak abruptly resigned from his position without providing a reason just a day after the release of an audio recording between Trump and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, in which Trump pressured the state’s top elections official to help him “find” enough votes to overturn the Nov. 3 election that Joe Biden won by nearly 12,000 votes.
Also on the recording, Trump references a “never-Trumper U.S. attorney there.”
Following Pak’s resignation, Bobby Christine, who had been the U.S. attorney for the Savannah-based Southern District of Georgia since 2017, was then tapped by Trump to takeover the Atlanta-based Northern District as well.
On Feb. 1, Christine also suddenly resigned from his position in the Northern District after dismissing election fraud claims, and resigned from the Southern District position a week later.
For the second time in less than a month, another new federal prosecutor was appointed.
Longtime first assistant U.S. attorney in the Atlanta office, Kurt Erskine, stepped in and now serves as acting U.S. attorney for the Northern District.
If selected to takeover for Erskine, Buchanan will lead over 90 attorneys and a total of more than 200 employees, serving six million citizens in a jurisidction that ranges from Georgia’s northern mountains to the Atlanta suburbs.
Buchanan is currently an Assistant United States Attorney for the office, where he has served since 2013.
Mr. Buchanan has served as the Deputy Chief of the Violent Crime and National Security Section since 2018 and as National Security and Anti-Terrorism Advisory Council Coordinator since 2017.
He previously served as an Assistant United States Attorney for the Northern District of Alabama from 2010 to 2013.
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