Karin Immergut

Karin Johanna Immergut (born December 22, 1960)[1] is an American lawyer serving as a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the District of Oregon.

Karin Immergut
Judge of the United States District Court for the District of Oregon
Assumed office
August 5, 2019
Appointed byDonald Trump
Preceded byAnna J. Brown
Judge of the Multnomah County Circuit Court
In office
July 2009 – August 5, 2019
Appointed byTed Kulongoski
Preceded byDale R. Koch
United States Attorney for the District of Oregon
In office
October 3, 2003 – July 2009
PresidentGeorge W. Bush
Barack Obama
Preceded byMichael W. Mosman
Succeeded byDwight Holton
Personal details
Born (1960-12-22) December 22, 1960
New York City, New York, U.S.
Political partyDemocratic (Before 1998)
Independent (1998–2003)
Republican (2003–present)
SpouseJames McDermott
EducationAmherst College (BA)
University of California, Berkeley (JD)

Early life and education

Immergut was born in Brooklyn, New York, on December 22, 1960.[2][3] Her father was an Austrian chemist and her mother a Swedish mathematician.[3] Her parents married in Sweden and then immigrated to the United States where Karin was born.[3]

Immergut graduated from Amherst College in 1982 with a Bachelor of Arts. From 1982 to 1984, Immergut was a special assistant at the New York City Departments of Juvenile Justice and Corrections. She then attended the UC Berkeley School of Law, where she was managing editor of the Boalt Hall Journal of Industrial Relations (now Berkeley Journal of Employment & Labor Law). She graduated with a Juris Doctor in 1987.[4]

Career

After law school she worked as a litigation associate at the law firm of Covington & Burling in Washington, D.C., for one year.

Following private practice, Immergut served as an assistant United States attorney for the Central District of California in Los Angeles for six years. During her tenure in the Central District of California, Immergut prosecuted several large-scale complex narcotics trafficking and money laundering cases and served as a deputy chief of the Narcotics Section and chief of the Training Section.[2] She then moved to Burlington, Vermont, to work for the firm Gravel & Shea for two years.[3]

Immergut served for five years as a deputy district attorney in Portland, Oregon, where she primarily prosecuted white collar crimes. In 1998, Immergut was a Multnomah County deputy district attorney when she went to work for Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr, who was investigating then-President Bill Clinton.[3] Immergut personally questioned Monica Lewinsky in an August 6, 1998, deposition.[5] In 2001, she joined the U.S. Attorney's office in Portland as an assistant U.S. attorney in the District of Oregon. Serving two years in the position, she prosecuted cases involving white collar crime and worked on Project Safe Neighborhoods, a national gun violence reduction initiative.

U.S. attorney
Immergut as U.S. attorney in 2008

Immergut was sworn in as interim United States attorney on October 3, 2003, and the United States Senate confirmed her nomination on that same date. She was appointed by President George W. Bush to the position.[2] Bush signed her commission to serve as the United States Attorney for the District of Oregon on October 4, 2003, and she was sworn in as the United States Attorney on October 8, 2003.[2] She succeeded Michael W. Mosman in that role.

As U.S. Attorney, Immergut served as the district's top federal law enforcement official. She managed a staff of approximately 107 people, including 51 assistant U.S. attorneys, who handled civil litigation on behalf of the United States and criminal investigations and prosecutions involving violations of federal law such as white collar crime, narcotics trafficking, violent crime, money laundering and cybercrime.[2] In addition, Immergut served on the Advisory Committee of U.S. Attorneys.[6]

In January 2008, Immergut applied to succeed Judge Garr King on the United States District Court for Oregon. She was initially considered the leading candidate for the post as the preferred choice of U.S. Senator Gordon H. Smith.[5] But after news reports highlighting her role in the investigation of President Bill Clinton's sex scandal, she was not one of the final candidates for the position, which ultimately Marco A. Hernandez was appointed to.[7] She re-registered as a Republican at the beginning of Bush's first term as President, in the same month that she went to work for Mosman.[5] She resigned from the office in July 2009 in order to be appointed as Multnomah County Circuit Court Judge.[8]

Federal judicial service

On June 7, 2018, President Donald Trump announced his intent to nominate Immergut to serve as a United States district judge for the United States District Court for the District of Oregon.[9] On June 11, 2018, her nomination was sent to the Senate. President Trump nominated Immergut to the seat vacated by Judge Anna J. Brown, who assumed senior status on July 27, 2017.[10] On October 24, 2018, a hearing on her nomination was held before the Senate Judiciary Committee.[11]

On January 3, 2019, her nomination was returned to the President under Rule XXXI, Paragraph 6 of the United States Senate. On January 23, 2019, President Trump announced his intent to renominate Immergut for a federal judgeship.[12] Her nomination was sent to the Senate later that day.[13] On February 7, 2019, her nomination was reported out of committee by a 20–2 vote.[14] On July 31, 2019, the Senate confirmed her nomination by voice vote. She received her judicial commission on August 5, 2019.[15]

Notable decision

On July 14, 2023, Immergut upheld Oregon's gun control law, Measure 114, "banning large capacity magazines and requiring a permit to purchase a gun falls in line with “the nation’s history and tradition of regulating uniquely dangerous features of weapons and firearms to protect public safety."[16]

Personal life

In 1996 Immergut moved to Portland, Oregon, where she married James T. McDermott and was hired by Multnomah County.[3]

References
  1. Lattman, Peter (January 25, 2006). "Karin Immergut & Patrick Fitzgerald: As Tight as the DOJ & SEC". The Wall Street Journal.
  2. "United States Attorney Karen J. Immergut". usdoj.gov. Archived from the original on June 10, 2009.
  3. Collins, Cliff (February–March 2004). "Profiles in the Law". Oregon State Bar Bulletin.
  4. "SJC Questionnaire".
  5. Pitkin, James (January 16, 2008). "Judgment Call". Willamette Week. Archived from the original on October 11, 2012.
  6. "#003: 01-08-04 ATTORNEY GENERAL APPOINTS SIX NEW MEMBERS TO ATTORNEY GENERAL'S 2004 ADVISORY COMMITTEE". Usdoj.gov. Retrieved June 8, 2018.
  7. Pitkin, James (January 25, 2008). "Immergut's Out: The Final Three Who Are In For A Federal Judge Appointment". Willamette Week. Archived from the original on October 20, 2012.
  8. Pitkin, James (May 8, 2009). "U.S. Attorney Karin Immergut Lands on Plan B: Circuit Court Judge". Willamette Week. Archived from the original on October 11, 2012. Retrieved February 5, 2010.
  9. "President Donald J. Trump Announces Fifteenth Wave of Judicial Nominees, Fourteenth Wave of United States Attorney Nominees, and Ninth Wave of United States Marshal Nominees – The White House". trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov.
  10. "Seventeen Nominations Sent to the Senate Today – The White House". trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov.
  11. "Nominations | United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary". www.judiciary.senate.gov. October 24, 2018.
  12. "President Donald J. Trump Announces Intent to Nominate Judicial Nominees – The White House". trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov.
  13. "Nominations Sent to the Senate – The White House". trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov.
  14. "Results of Executive Business Meeting – February 7, 2019, Senate Judiciary Committee" (PDF).
  15. Karin Immergut at the Biographical Directory of Federal Judges, a public domain publication of the Federal Judicial Center.
  16. "Federal judge rules Oregon's tough new gun law is constitutional". yahoo.com.
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