Thomas B. Heffelfinger (born 1948) is an attorney in private practice in
Minneapolis, Minnesota
Minneapolis () is the largest city in Minnesota, United States, and the county seat of Hennepin County. The city is abundant in water, with thirteen lakes, wetlands, the Mississippi River, creeks and waterfalls. Minneapolis has its origins ...
. He was the U.S. Attorney for Minnesota from 1991 to 1993 and from 2001 to 2006. He served as
assistant U.S. Attorney
An assistant United States attorney (AUSA) is an official career civil service position in the U.S. Department of Justice composed of lawyers working under the U.S. Attorney of each U.S. federal judicial district. They represent the federal gove ...
from 1982 to 1988 and assistant
Hennepin County Attorney from 1976 to 1982.
Early life
Heffelfinger received his
B.A. from
Stanford University
Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...
in 1970, and his
J.D. from the
University of Minnesota Law School in 1975.
U.S. Attorney
Indian Affairs
Investigation of
the shooting deaths of 10 people at a school at the
Red Lake Indian Reservation on March 21, 2005, absorbed much of his time in the subsequent 11 months.
Dismissal of U.S. Attorneys controversy
Heffelfinger resigned on February 28, 2006, for personal reasons, and he was replaced by
Rachel Paulose
Rachel Kunjummen Paulose (born March 12, 1973, Kerala, India) is an American attorney. She was nominated by President George W. Bush and unanimously confirmed by the United States Senate to serve as a United States Attorney. She was the younges ...
. The ''Minneapolis Star-Tribune'' reported that it was unusual that "the former U.S. attorney for Minnesota, Thomas Heffelfinger, was not invited" to Paulose's swearing-in ceremony. Paulose's spokesperson, Jeanne Cooney, said, "It was a public event. Anybody who wanted to go could have gone." The article speculates that Heffelfinger, a moderate Republican, could have been a candidate for dismissal had he not stepped aside to make way for a more conservative candidate.
Heffelfinger was angry at the Department of Justice for targeting him for dismissal because of his preoccupation with Indian affairs issues. Heffelfinger strongly defended that work: "The fact that some allegedly responsible official or officials in Washington at main Justice now believe that I should have been removed for spending too much time focused on the public safety of
Native Americans is outrageous, and it's shameful."
Circumstantial evidence suggests that Heffelfinger was targeted for dismissal as a consequence of his positions on tribal voting in
Minnesota.
Heffelfinger's appearance on potential dismissal lists at the Department of Justice apparently fits a pattern associating the dismissed attorneys and voting issues. The names of
Bradley Schlozman and
Hans A. von Spakovsky also appear in this case;
Schlozman was a central figure in a voting and elections controversy in
Missouri.
Private practice
After his resignation as U.S. Attorney, Heffelfinger was hired by the law firm Best and Flanagan, where he focuses on white-collar criminal defense and American Indian law.
Opposition to President Donald Trump
In October 2020, Heffelfinger signed a letter, along with 19 other Republican-appointed former U.S. Attorneys, calling President
Donald Trump "a threat to the rule of law in our country" and endorsing
Joe Biden.
References
External links
Heffelfinger's biography at Best and Flanagan.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Heffelfinger, Thomas B.
Dismissal of U.S. attorneys controversy
Living people
University of Minnesota Law School alumni
Stanford University alumni
United States Attorneys for the District of Minnesota
1948 births