Trump's pick for No. 3 job at Justice Dept. is DC-based US attorney

Jessie Liu is currently the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia. (Department of Justice)

President Trump said he will nominate Jessie Liu, the current U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, to be associate attorney general -- the No. 3 position in the Department of Justice.

Liu's principal responsibility, if confirmed, would be to oversee the Justice Department's civil litigation, a report said.

Attorney General William Barr recommended Liu's nomination.

“Jessie has distinguished herself as a first-class attorney in private practice, in the Treasury Department, and in five different positions over her career at the Department of Justice,” Barr said in a statement, adding that he was pleased to recommend Liu and grateful for her nomination, according to the Washington Post.

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Barr noted that Liu's accomplishments include prosecuting several significant False Claims Act cases, which involve fraud against the U.S. government, and implementing a Justice Department pilot initiative on sexual harassment in public housing.

Liu, 46, currently leads more than 300 prosecutors in the nation's largest U.S. attorney's office. The attorneys have unique federal jurisdiction in the nation's capital to prosecute both local and federal crimes, the Post reported.

Trump nominated Liu to become a U.S. attorney in 2017. Some Democrats questioned why he met with her in person before the nomination, which was a departure from standard practice in previous administrations, according to the Post. But nonetheless, her nomination didn't generate much controversy, the report said.

Liu has also been seen as a steadying presence at the U.S. attorney's office, the paper reported.

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Liu was an assistant U.S. attorney in the District from 2002 to 2006, prosecuting violent crime, drug trafficking, firearms and fraud offenses, according to the DOJ's website. She then joined the Justice Department's national security division and served as a deputy assistant attorney general with the civil rights division until 2009, according to the Post.

She graduated from Harvard University in 1995 and from Yale Law School in 1998.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.