The United States Attorneys for the District of Columbia 1801-2024

About the Book

Did you know that Francis Scott Key, author of the Star-Spangled Banner, was also the top federal prosecutor for the District of Columbia for eight years? Read a short biography of his life, his career, and his work as a prosecutor and lawyer in this fascinating compendium featuring all forty-nine United States Attorneys for the District of Columbia. Or read the shocking story of the 1859 murder in Lafayette Park of Key’s son, Barton Key, who was serving as the United States Attorney at the time he was shot dead. Congressman Daniel Sickles murdered Key after Sickles discovered Key was having an affair with Sickles’ wife. In recent history, read about Earl Silbert, who broke the case of the Watergate cover-up, along with the stories of such distinguished lawyers and judges as Thomas Flannery, Eric Holder, Chuck Ruff, and many others. The book recounts the history of one of the most important of the ninety-four judicial districts in the United States. Many landmark trials in our nation’s history occurred in the District of Columbia courts, either guided by or defended by one of these forty-nine men and women. They prosecuted the assassins of Presidents Lincoln and Garfield, and the men who attempted to assassinate Presidents Jackson, Truman, and Reagan. They also played pivotal roles in the trials concerning the Teapot Dome Scandal of 1923, the attacks on the Capitol by Puerto Rican nationalists in 1954, the 1971 May Day protest against the Vietnam War, and the Jan. 6th, 2021 violent attack on the Capitol. The book is sourced in great detail, richly illustrated with over 800 historic photos and other images contemporaneous with the events that defined the lives of each United States Attorney.

About the Author

Chris Todd served for over a decade as a federal prosecutor in New York City and in Washington D.C. He has been a partner at Kellogg, Hansen. Todd, Figel & Frederick P.L.L.C. in Washington, D.C. for thirty years. For almost twenty years, he was the chair of the board of trustees of a study abroad program in Greece, College Year in Athens (CYA), and is now Chair Emeritus.

Jim Thunder has authored 300 items in law, history/biography, and public policy. He worked with Chris on the 2014 biographies of sixty United States Attorneys for the Southern District of New York. He lives with his wife in Charlottesville, Virginia, and they have three grown children. He hopes readers will enjoy as much as he has seeing history—national, D.C., legal—through these forty-nine biographies.