Politics
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Maine District Court judge Andrew Benson has emerged as the favorite to be nominated by President Donald Trump as the state’s next U.S. attorney, a source familiar with the process exclusively told the Bangor Daily News.
The office is one of the top state-level prizes awarded when the White House changes hands. Maine Republicans have been speculating heavily about the pick since Trump won the 2024 election, particularly after he took office with an aggressive agenda to reshape the federal government in his image.
From the outset, Benson would be a conventional pick. He was nominated to the bench by former Gov. Paul LePage in 2014 and reappointed by Gov. Janet Mills in 2021. Before that, he was the senior homicide prosecutor in the Maine attorney general’s office.
Benson has not been nominated, and the source cautioned that Trump could always change course. The process is largely being managed by U.S. Sen. Susan Collins, a Republican whose office declined comment. Neither the White House nor a spokesperson for U.S. Sen. Angus King, an independent who caucuses with Democrats, responded to inquiries.
Both of a state’s senators must sign off on U.S. attorney and district court nominees under the Senate “blue slip” custom that Trump has recently criticized. Republicans have continued to observe it, so Benson could operate as a consensus candidate aimed at getting King’s consent.
“He would prefer not to issue a comment at this time,” a spokesperson for Maine’s judiciary said of Benson on Thursday.
Benson’s career is pretty typical of a Maine judge. He lives in Athens and is based in Skowhegan. There have been few major controversies during his tenure, although he was dressed down as “sophomoric” by Maine’s high court in 2016 for an incident as a prosecutor in which he feigned sleep to annoy defense counsel.
Behind the scenes, Republicans are expecting Trump’s next U.S. attorney to be aggressive in prosecuting crimes including the Chinese-linked marijuana grows that have proliferated across rural Maine. Steve Robinson, the editor of the conservative Maine Wire, who has reported extensively on that, posted earlier this week that the Senate should dump the blue slip custom.
Benson may not be the most exciting choice off the top for conservative activists seeking a hard charger. Robinson’s outlet published a story this year noting Benson reduced bail for a man accused of sexually assaulting a young child.
Collins has been running the point on these nominations with a committee that includes prominent Republicans including lobbyists Josh Tardy and Ann Robinson. Tardy has also helped pick judicial nominees for both LePage and Mills, underscoring the not-so-partisan nature of Maine’s feeder system for judges.
