The top prosecutor for the U.S. attorney’s office in the Western District of Michigan announced Tuesday that he is stepping down.
Mark Totten, who lives in Kalamazoo, will leave his post on Monday on president-elect Trump’s first day back in office.
In 2022, President Joe Biden appointed the 1992 Kalamazoo Central High School graduate to lead the US attorney’s office in West Michigan.
“The ability to achieve a measure of justice, to prevent a future harm, to educate the public about what's happening, it's just really, really fulfilling and I've been so grateful to have this opportunity,” Totten said on Tuesday afternoon.
Totten’s victories include winning a bribery case against former speaker of the Michigan House Rick Johnson. He also got convictions against two people in a sextortion case that led to the suicide of a Michigan teen.
“That case has really started a national conversation about this crime, about what individuals - parents, young people - can do to protect themselves. And, you know, I think the investigation and the prosecution, really set a benchmark for how to go about handling these cases.”
Totten is not the only U.S. attorney to announce his resignation this week. Michigan’s other U.S. attorney, Dawn Ison, is resigning from Michigan’s Eastern District on Sunday. Like Totten, Ison is a Biden appointee.
Totten said stepping aside is expected.
“The tradition has been that when there's a change in administration, the US attorney would step down around that time, and that a new appointee would have eventually come in. And so that is consistent with that tradition. That's what I'm doing now.”
The former U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Michigan, Andrew Birge, will serve as acting U.S. Attorney until a successor is nominated by President-elect Trump and confirmed by the Senate.
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