The woman who has run the U.S. Attorney’s office in Spokane is leaving the office at the end of the month as part of the shift to a new presidential administration. Vanessa Waldref became the lead federal attorney for eastern Washington in October 2021. During that time she worked to make the office more visible to the public.
Here are excerpts from our interview with her:
Vanessa Waldref: Often so much fear can exist around public safety. And if people understand how we're all working together to really try to address violent crime and drug trafficking and try to address investment fraud or elder fraud or patient fraud for, you know, if you're seeking health care, that's so critical to our day to day lives. So I really wanted people to understand how the Department of Justice works to protect people, protect civil rights and to protect all of our health and safety.
On strengthening relationships with the region’s Native American tribes:
Vanessa Waldref: The federal government is in a trust relationship with our tribal communities. And we are the only forces for addressing felony criminal conduct on tribal lands. So I advocated strongly for additional resources from the Department of Justice so that we could better serve our tribal nations. And that's really resulted in an increase in cases that we've been able to bring. And in communicating and effectively working with our tribal nations, it's really important to have everyone understand what we do, why we do it and that's helping victims come forward.
On opening a new U.S. Attorney’s office in the Tri-Cities:
Vanessa Waldref: The huge population growth in the Tri-Cities over the last two decades really allowed for a federal building with a federal courthouse, with a sitting federal judge to be built up in Richland. And the U.S. Attorney's Office needed to catch up with that. It had been an issue when I was an Assistant United States Attorney, when I would do the two-and-a-half hour drive to the Richland courthouse and handle cases and hearings there. So that's a big drain on our resources if we're hitting the road. And also having in-person commitment to build those law enforcement relationships, to be able to have a finger on the pulse of what the community truly needs.
On working with people from both sides of the political aisle:
Vanessa Waldref: When you come into any meeting showing that you are willing to address the same concerns we're all feeling, public safety, narcotics in our communities, fraud, when we're focusing on the issues, politics don't come into play at all. In this role, my objective was to serve everyone in Eastern Washington. And I built awesome, strong partnerships with everyone on every range of the aisle. We would focus in on how do we identify cases that might appropriately come to the federal government, where we might have sentences that better fit the egregiousness of the crime?
On her office’s COVID fraud task force:
Vanessa Waldref: We had heard about just so many of these [federal COVID relief] dollars going to individuals who are not deserving, who are taking advantage of the system and hardworking businesses did not receive funds that they were entitled to and would have kept doors from being shuttered. And that has so many economic ramifications throughout the entire community. So that was something that I thought was such a critical aspect of how do we serve our community and have a vibrant economy, help small businesses. So we wanted to hold those accountable who took advantage of those systems. And my office, working with the Small Business Administration Office of Inspector General, realized that we could do that the best way by bringing a whole bunch of federal agencies together.
