Biden picks assistant Jackson County, Mo., prosecutor as next U.S. attorney in Kansas

President Joe Biden has nominated Kate Brubacher, who recently served as an assistant prosecutor in Jackson County, Missouri, to lead the U.S. attorney’s office in Kansas.

The nomination was announced Tuesday morning by the White House. If confirmed by the U.S. Senate, Brubacher would be the first woman to hold the position in Kansas.

Brubacher served as an assistant prosecuting attorney in Jackson County, Missouri, from 2016 to August 2022. Before that, she was was an associate at the law firm Cooley LLP in New York.

In Jackson County, Brubacher prosecuted homicide cases, helped with a federally-funded restorative justice program and worked on initiatives aimed at reducing gun violence in Kansas City.

Brubacher said she is honored to be nominated and looks forward to the confirmation process.

In 2018, she spoke to KCUR about an anti-violence effort she was leading and said, “Look, we need law enforcement.”

“Every community member that I speak to, they will tell you that there are people who need to be removed from the streets,” Brubacher told the radio station. “But let’s be smarter about who needs to be removed and who are community members that need to be empowered. And these people are living on the same block.”

Brubacher was later among Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker’s team that in 2021 fought for the release of Kevin Strickland, a Kansas City man who spent more than 40 years in prison for a triple murder he did not commit. She questioned witnesses during the evidence hearing that led to Strickland’s exoneration in November 2021 and stood among the crowd that watched him walk out of prison.

Baker on Tuesday said she was “thrilled” for Kansas and sad for Jackson County, describing Brubacher as skillful and “one of the best lawyers I have seen walk through the doors of this office.”

Brubacher was Baker’s “wingman” on the Strickland case, during which she did much of the behind-the-scenes legal work, Baker said.

“She was absolutely critical,” Baker told The Star. “I just don’t believe Kevin Strickland would be free without the work that she did.”

Brubacher, a 2010 graduate of Yale Law School, is from a Mennonite family in Newton, Kansas, which is north of Wichita, KCUR reported. She earned a master’s degree in religion from Yale Divinity School in 2007 and bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Stanford University in 2003, according to the White House.

As the chief federal law enforcement officer in Kansas, Brubacher would oversee about 50 assistant U.S. attorneys and their offices in Kansas City, Kansas; Topeka and Wichita.

Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kansas, said he was happy that Biden had moved forward with the nomination for an important position that “has been vacant for too long.”

“Based on her reputation, Kate Brubacher is a quality candidate with significant experience as a prosecuting attorney,” Moran said in a prepared statement. “I look forward to meeting with Ms. Brubacher and discussing her qualifications to lead the U.S. attorney’s office in Kansas.”