San Diego federal judges vote to extend Adam Gordon as region’s U.S. attorney

Meeting a 4-month deadline, San Diego federal judges have voted to appoint Adam Gordon as U.S. attorney for the downtown-based Southern District of California, the local court says.

On Tuesday, the clerk of the U.S. District Court here confirmed a report first made by a legal newspaper.

“The judges voted to appoint interim U.S. Attorney Adam Gordon,” the clerk, John Morrill, told Times of San Diego. “An appointment order will be filed before the term expires on August 7.”

Morrill later added: “As reported in the Daily Journal article, the vote was taken yesterday.  I’m unable to provide any additional details on this matter.”

The Los Angeles-based Daily Journal on Tuesday said: “Chief Judge Cynthia A. Bashant confirmed the judges’ vote in a phone call Monday afternoon. The Trump administration asked them to appoint Gordon to the position last week, she added.”

Logan Manning, a spokesman for the San Diego DOJ office, said via email Tuesday he was seeking clarification.

“I will contact you when I receive more information,” Manning wrote. “I do not expect we will have a formal press release on this matter.”

U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi on April 10 named Gordon to a 120-day term, which was set to expire Aug. 7.

The Daily Journal, in a story by Craig Anderson, said Gordon would remain in the job as the top federal law enforcer unless he is fired by President Donald Trump or replaced by a U.S. attorney nominee who is confirmed by the U.S. Senate.

Gordon, 44, was previously a San Diego County deputy district attorney from 2009 to 2014, who in 2017 sought appointment by the county Board of Supervisors to be interim district attorney to succeed the resigning Bonnie Dumanis.

The San Diego Union-Tribune said Gordon, who joined the local U.S. Attorney’s Office in 2019, has not held a supervisory role “but until recently served as the opioid coordinator, which included leading prosecutions of fentanyl dealers whose products resulted in overdose deaths.”

A Trump donor, Gordon also made donations to Texas Sen. Ted Cruz ($250 in June 2024) and $1,200 to the 2020 Golden State Delegation, a conservative political action committee, according to opensecrets.org.

In 2015, Gordon gave $300 to Maverick PAC, described on its website as “the premier national network for conservative young professionals. We are next generation leaders working together to build a pragmatic, conservative future for America.”

Gordon is a 2004 graduate of Harvard University, where he was a wide receiver on its varsity football team listed as 6-foot-2, 205 pounds and hailing from Rancho Santa Fe. His high school was the prestigious Groton School in Massachusetts,

“For his work as a [Harvard] student-athlete, he was awarded the Francis H. Burr Scholarship Prize and the Patrick C. Melendez Award,” said a biography on the site of his former employer, downtown-based Seltzer Caplan McMahon Vitek.

At Seltzer, his specialties were listed as “litigation” and “White Collar Criminal Defense/Government Investigations.”