Fishman is Lautenberg's choice for U.S. Attorney

If Barack Obama wins the presidency, a leading candidate for U.S. Attorney is Paul Fishman, a former federal prosecutor who reportedly has the backing of New Jersey's senior United States Senator, Frank Lautenberg.  Sources close to Lautenberg say that he plans to strongly advocate Fishman's appointment to replace Republican Christopher Christie.

But Fishman essentially needs two votes to get the job, and U.S. Senator Robert Menendez has not committed any support to Fishman. Even though Lautenberg is the senior Senator, insiders say that the support of Menendez will be crucial to any successful candidate for U.S. Attorney.

Lautenberg pushed hard for Fishman to get the U.S. Attorney post in 1999, when Faith Hochberg was nominated to a federal judgeship.  But Fishman got in the middle of a rather extraordinary public feud between Lautenberg and U.S. Senator Robert Torricelli.  The Clinton administration sided with Torricelli, and when Hochberg resigned to take her seat on the bench (after a lengthy delay in the confirmation process), Attorney General Janet Reno elevated Torricelli's preferred choice, First Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert Cleary, as New Jersey's interim federal prosecutor.  

The 52-year-old Fishman, a Princeton University graduate and editor of the Harvard Law Review, worked in the U.S. Attorney's office as Chief of the Criminal Division and as First Assistant before going to Washington as a senior advisor to Reno and as a Deputy U.S. Attorney General.  Fishman is a partner at Friedman, Kaplan, Seiler and Adelman, where he specializes in white collar criminal matters.  Fishman has represented several public officials prosecuted by Christie, and is currently an attorney for former CWA Local 1034 President Carla Katz, who is seeking to keep her e-mail correspondence with Governor Jon Corzine private.

Christie, a possible candidate for the 2009 GOP nomination for Governor, is expected to submit his resignation by January 20, 2009, when the new President, either Obama or John McCain, takes office.  A federal prosecutor for New Jersey is not likely to be a top priority for the new President; more likely, the Department of Justice will elevate a career prosecutor from within the office to serve as Acting U.S. Attorney for the first four months.  

Some Democrats have suggested that William Matsikoudis, the Jersey City Corporation Counsel and a former Assistant Counsel to Gov. James E. McGreevey, could emerge as a candidate for U.S. Attorney.  But sources say that Matsikoudis might be more likely as a candidate for Regional Administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in an Obama administration.  Jersey City Mayor Jerramiah Healy, the Hudson County Democratic Chairman, was an early supporter of Obama's presidential campaign.