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Background: The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin building located in Milwaukee, Wisconsin (U.S. District Courts). Inset left: Then-Wisconsin Supreme Court candidate Brad Schimel makes his concession speech to a crowd at his election night party, in Pewaukee, Wis., April 1, 2025. (AP Photo/Andy Manis, File). Inset right: Attorney General Pam Bondi listens as she testifies before a House Judiciary Committee oversight hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, Feb. 11, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Tom Brenner, file).
The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin has opted not to extend the tenure of Attorney General Pam Bondi’s interim appointee for the position of top federal prosecutor in Milwaukee. This decision represents another instance where a Trump administration-designated U.S. attorney faces the potential of being replaced.
Brad Schimel, who currently holds the interim U.S. Attorney position for the Eastern District of Wisconsin, will see his role conclude by March 17, according to the court’s decision. The judges chose not to use their “permissive authority” to prolong his temporary appointment.
After failing to secure a seat on Wisconsin’s Supreme Court, Schimel was appointed by Bondi as the interim U.S. attorney in Milwaukee on November 17, 2025. The district court has stated in a press release that his appointment will end on March 17.
The court clarified that its decision to not extend Schimel’s tenure should not be interpreted as a critique of his performance or qualifications, nor of any attorneys within the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
“The office has effectively continued to serve the citizens of this district,” the judges remarked. “We are now anticipating the President and United States Senate to nominate and confirm a permanent U.S. Attorney.”
Earlier this month, Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin openly called for a bipartisan judicial nominating commission to appoint the state’s next U.S. attorney. She said that such an action is necessary because, despite interim appointments being limited to only 120 days, the Trump administration has allegedly tried to “skirt this law to keep other interim U.S. Attorneys, who are ardent supporters of the President, in place longer.”
“I never thought a clearly partisan actor like Brad Schimel should be a top federal prosecutor in our state to begin with, and he certainly shouldn’t get an extension for this job,” she wrote on March 4.
The Trump administration has faced intense criticism from federal judges for appointing certain interim or acting U.S. attorneys. Several — John Sarcone in New York, Lindsey Halligan in Virginia, and Alina Habba in New Jersey — were declared to be unlawfully serving.
Despite Sarcone being deemed an illegitimate acting top prosecutor for the Northern District of New York, he clung to his claimed title even after a judge quashed his grand jury subpoenas of New York Attorney General Letitia James’ office and found that Sarcone “used authority he did not lawfully possess to direct the issuance of the subpoenas[.]”
Halligan similarly continued to identify herself as a “United States Attorney & Special Attorney” despite a district judge ruling last November that she was a “private citizen” who was never validly appointed to serve as interim U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia.
Habba was likewise found to have been unlawfully appointed as acting U.S. attorney for New Jersey. A federal judge excoriated Bondi for attempting to keep her in place and then appointing a “triumvirate” of prosecutors to take Habba’s place — warning that Bondi’s maneuvering put “thousands” of cases at stake.