President Biden nominates Gregory Haanstad, Sopen Shah to be top federal prosecutors in Wisconsin

Cary Spivak
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Veteran federal prosecutor Gregory Haanstad and Sopen Shah, an attorney with a giant international law firm, have been nominated by President Biden to be the top federal prosecutors in the state.

If confirmed by the Senate, this will be Haanstad's second time running the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Wisconsin. The office is based in Milwaukee.

Haanstad joined the U.S. Attorney's Office in 2002 and was named Acting U.S. Attorney in 2015, replacing James Santelle.

Santelle resigned after it was disclosed he was under investigation for misusing a federal credit card. Santelle was criticized for his action, though he was never charged with wrongdoing and the government did not lose any money.

Then-U.S. Attorney Gregory Haanstad announces 19 arrests in a sprawling drug trafficking case on Dec. 6, 2017.

Haanstad graduated from the University of Wisconsin Law School in 2000 and was named U.S. Attorney in 2016. He held the post until 2018.

He has prosecuted individuals for violating a wide variety of federal laws, including those involving sex trafficking, and drug cases and white collar crime and fraud schemes.

Biden nominated Shah to oversee the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Western District of Wisconsin. The office is based in Madison.

Shah graduated from Yale Law School in 2015  and is an attorney in the Madison office of Perkins Coie, a firm that has 1,200 lawyers across the United States and Asia, according to the firm's website.

Prior to joining Perkins Coie, Shah was Wisconsin's Deputy Solicitor General for two years. She was named to that post by then-Attorney General Brad Schimel, a Republican.

At the time, Schimel said in a statement Shah's "Ivy League education, private sector experience, and federal judicial clerkships provide a unique skill set that will prove beneficial to litigation strategy."

Last year, she was part of a team of lawyers representing the Democratic National Committee in a voting case that went to the U.S. Supreme Court.

It is unknown when the Senate will act on Haanstad and Shah's nominations.

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Contact Cary Spivak at (414) 550-0070 or cspivak@jrn.com. Follow him on Twitter at @cspivak.