The U.S. Senate voted Tuesday to approve Darcie McElwee’s nomination to serve as U.S. attorney for Maine.

McElwee’s nomination was advanced by the Senate Judiciary Committee last Thursday and approved by a voice vote of the full Senate Tuesday. McElwee was assistant district attorney for Penobscot and Piscataquis counties from 1998 to 2002 and has been an assistant U.S. attorney for the District of Maine since 2002. She also was an adjunct professor of advanced trial advocacy at the University of Maine School of Law from 2005 to 2008 and coordinator of Project Safe Neighborhoods in the U.S. Attorney’s Office since 2005.

Darcie McElwee Photo courtesy Sen. Susan Collins’ office

All four members of Maine’s congressional delegation said they support McElwee’s nomination.

Sen. Susan Collins spoke in support of the nomination Tuesday prior to the vote, noting that she and McElwee are both natives of Caribou.

“It is with a great deal of hometown pride that I express my strong support for the confirmation of Darcie McElwee to be the new U.S. Attorney for the State of Maine,” Collins said.

McElwee’s confirmation “will make our state a safer, more just place,” Sen. Angus King and Reps. Jared Golden and Chellie Pingree said in a statement.

McElwee is a member of the Maine Trial Lawyers Association and a past president of the Cumberland Bar Association.

She received her bachelor’s degree from Bowdoin College in 1995 and her law degree from the University of Maine School of Law in 1998.

As U.S. attorney, she will replace Halsey Frank, who resigned in February to make way for the Biden administration to make an appointment to the office.


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