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Press Release

Joseph H. Harrington to Serve as Acting United States Attorney for the Eastern District Of Washington

For Immediate Release
U.S. Attorney's Office, Eastern District of Washington

By operation of the Vacancies Reform Act, Joseph H. Harrington is serving as the Acting United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Washington following the recent resignation of Michael C. Ormsby. The Eastern District of Washington comprises the twenty counties east of the crest of the Cascade Mountains

Harrington has served in the United States Attorney’s Office since 1990. During his tenure in the office he has held the positions of First Assistant United States Attorney, Criminal Chief, Deputy Criminal Chief, Anti-Terrorism Advisory Coordinator, and Health Care Fraud Coordinator. Harrington was involved with the prosecutions of: Kevin W. Harpham, an avowed white supremacist who planted a sophisticated remotely-controlled IED along the route of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Day Unity March in Spokane; the Phineas Priest domestic terrorism case involving bank robberies and bombings of a Planned Parenthood office and a Spokane newspaper facility; and the Karl F. Thompson / Otto Zehm civil rights case.

Harrington received his J.D. from Gonzaga University in 1986, where he was a Thomas Moore Scholar (full academic scholarship) and served as the Editor-in- Chief of the Gonzaga Law Review. He holds a B.A. in Mathematics and a B.S. in Engineering.

Updated April 28, 2017