U.S. attorney for Eastern District of Arkansas since '10 booted by Sessions

Chris Thyer, the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas since late 2010
Chris Thyer, the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas since late 2010

Chris Thyer, the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas since late 2010, was among many U.S. attorneys across the country who spent Monday packing up and moving out of their offices in response to a sudden request for their resignations from Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

"No, I did not have any advance notice," Thyer, 47, said in the late afternoon after hurriedly loading up his truck with 6½ years of accumulated personal effects and putting his official signature on waiting documents. "I found out when I saw the press release."

He was referring to a news release the U.S. Department of Justice sent midafternoon Friday to 46 of its 93 U.S. attorneys across the country, seeking the immediate resignations of all who had been appointed by President Barack Obama. Sessions was sworn in last month as the top law enforcement officer in the country under President Donald Trump.

Thyer said the office's spokesman, Chris Givens, received the email about 3 p.m. and immediately called him.

"I said, 'I don't know what you're talking about,'" Thyer recalled. "Then he sent me the press release."

Although it is customary for the chief U.S. attorney in each district, a political appointee, to expect to leave the positions once a new president is in office, the process is usually more gradual, and some presidents retain their predecessor's appointees, at least until a new appointee has been confirmed by the U.S. Senate and is in place.

"It was certainly expected, frankly, and it would have been expected had Hillary won," Thyer said, referring to Hillary Clinton, Trump's Democratic opponent in the Nov. 8 general election. "It's what new presidents do."

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But, he said, "I was disappointed as to how it was rolled out." Thyer noted that the last directive the Obama appointees had received, around the time of Trump's inauguration on Jan. 20, was that "they would be reaching out to us individually."

Thyer said he received a formal letter from Sessions on Friday night and then received extra confirmation of his firing by speaking to a U.S. Justice Department official on Saturday morning.

In the state's Western District, interim U.S. Attorney Kenneth Elser will stay on until Trump appoints a new attorney to head the office, said spokesman Joyce Snow. Elser isn't a presidential appointee.

He took over the office in August 2015 when Conner Eldridge, an Obama appointee, left the job to run for the U.S. Senate.

"It happened so suddenly and quickly that I don't know what the next chapter in my life holds," said Thyer, who lives in Jonesboro with his wife, Craighead County Circuit Judge Cindy Thyer, and their children. He was on his way home to Jonesboro when he spoke to a reporter by phone Monday after meeting with his staff members and thanking them for their service.

"It was an emotional time for me, personally," Thyer said. "They are the backbone of everything that goes on in the Eastern District of Arkansas."

Patrick Harris, a 31-year career prosecutor who was Thyer's first assistant for the past four years and headed up the office's criminal section for six years before that, is now the acting U.S. attorney.

A news release from the office said that Thyer has made "serving the needs of the poor and crime-affected citizens of eastern Arkansas a priority during his tenure."

Thyer said he is most proud of his office's work in helping disadvantaged communities take back their neighborhoods from violent drug dealers. The zealous prosecution of many violent drug organizations began in October 2011, less than a year after Thyer was sworn in, when a federal grand jury indicted 71 defendants in "Operation Delta Blues."

The initiative was aimed at tackling the dual epidemic of drugs and violence in eastern Arkansas, and the Delta in particular. It dismantled an international cocaine ring that operated out of West Memphis, Helena-West Helena and Marianna, and led to the conviction of five law enforcement officers on corruption charges.

The leader of the conspiracy, Sedrick Trice, was ultimately sentenced to 40 years in prison. Another high-ranking drug dealer, Demetrius Colbert, who wounded an FBI agent while shooting at police during the execution of a search warrant at his house in Marianna, is serving life plus 10 years in prison.

"Under Mr. Thyer's leadership, the crime-ridden areas where local police most needed federal assistance received that assistance, including Mississippi, Craighead, Crittenden, Phillips and Lee counties," the news release said. "Since 2013, multiple joint operations ... have resulted in arrests of hundreds of criminals and the dismantling of drug networks in those areas."

In the past three years, in Blytheville alone, four major operations have resulted in 127 arrests, according to the U.S. attorney's office.

The office under Thyer was also credited with early recognition of the opioid epidemic's intrusion into Arkansas, and with the prosecution of multiple cases involving Mexican drug cartels.

"The credit all belongs to them and none to me," Thyer said Monday, referring to his team of prosecutors and the support staff.

Thyer became known for harnessing the power of the federal government to pull together local, state and federal law enforcement agencies to jointly tackle drug trafficking, organized crime, child exploitation, health care and financial fraud, and civil-rights abuses.

"Our laws and our law enforcement agencies are meant to do two things: to allow citizens of the United States to fully realize the pursuit of peace and prosperity, and to arrest and prosecute those who criminally interfere with those freedoms," Thyer said.

"I have seen communities where drugs and violence have stolen even the freedom to go for a walk or play in a park because of the brazenness of violent drug dealers. For more than six years I have had the privilege of working with local, state and federal law enforcement officers and prosecutors to fight these violent drug dealers. This has been a highlight of my professional life for which I am thankful."

Meanwhile, the office has defended civil cases against government agencies, which it said saved the government about $27 million in damages in 2013 alone and led to the recovery of about $193 million in false-claim settlements and civil enforcements, and more than $11.5 million in criminal and civil collections.

Thyer was previously in private practice and served as a state representative for House District 74 from 2003-09.

When he was formally sworn into office on Dec. 31, 2010, a little more than a week after the U.S. Senate confirmed his nomination by Obama, it was at a private ceremony in the federal courthouse. Unlike most newly appointed court officials, Thyer never had a formal swearing-in ceremony at a later date, rejecting the pageantry in favor of quietly doing his job.

But during the years that he was the chief law enforcement officer for the state's Eastern District, which is centered in Little Rock and comprises 41 counties, the news conferences he held alongside leaders of federal and state law enforcement agencies to announce the results of various operations attracted a steady amount of attention.

Information for this article was contributed by Eric Besson of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

A Section on 03/14/2017

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