Christopher R. Kavanaugh

United States Attorney

Christopher R. Kavanaugh is the United States Attorney for the Western District of Virginia.  Nominated by President Biden in August 2021 and unanimously confirmed by the Senate in October 2021, Mr. Kavanaugh is the chief federal law enforcement officer in the Western District of Virginia, which was established in 1819 and encompasses 52 counties and 17 independent cities.  
 
As United States Attorney, Mr. Kavanaugh supervises the investigation and prosecution of all federal crimes and the litigation of all civil matters in which the United States has an interest.  Mr. Kavanaugh serves on the Attorney General’s Advisory Committee (AGAC), a select group of United States Attorneys who advise the Attorney General on matters of policy, procedure, and management.  Mr. Kavanaugh also serves as Chair of the AGAC’s Terrorism and National Security Subcommittee and Co-Chair of the Domestic Terrorism Executive Committee.
 
Prior to his nomination, Mr. Kavanaugh had been an Assistant United States Attorney for 14 years, having served in United States Attorney’s Offices for both the Western District of Virginia and the District of Columbia.  During his career, Mr. Kavanaugh directed numerous multi-agency investigations and prosecutions, with a focus on national security, civil rights, white-collar crime, and violent crimes involving racketeering and homicides.  While in the Western District of Virginia, he served as the District’s chief national security prosecutor and Senior Litigation Counsel.  Among other matters, he led the Department’s investigations and prosecutions into the Unite the Right riots of August 2017 in Charlottesville, Virginia.  Just prior to his confirmation, Mr. Kavanaugh was Senior Counsel to Deputy Attorney General Lisa O. Monaco at the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington, D.C.
 
For the decade prior to becoming United States Attorney, Mr. Kavanaugh was a member of the Adjunct Faculty at the University of Virginia School of Law, where he taught federal criminal practice and trial advocacy. Mr. Kavanaugh graduated summa cum laude from Georgia Tech with a Bachelor of Science in Industrial and Systems Engineering.  He earned his law degree from the University of Virginia School of Law.  Following law school, he clerked for the Honorable James C. Cacheris, U.S. District Court Judge for the Eastern District of Virginia.