CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — Aaron Reitz took his oath today as the new U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Texas, sworn in by U.S. District Judge Nicholas J. Ganjei.
Reitz will lead one of the largest and busiest U.S. Attorney's Offices in the country — a district that covers 43 counties, more than 10 million people, and 44,000 square miles, with seven court divisions in Houston, Galveston, Victoria, Corpus Christi, Brownsville, McAllen, and Laredo.
"I'm honored to serve as the chief federal law enforcement officer and lawyer for this mission-critical district," Reitz said. "Our office will relentlessly combat violent crime, illegal immigration, drug and human trafficking, corruption, and fraud. We will faithfully uphold the rule of law and protect the public. Things are about to get very bad for criminals in the Southern District of Texas."
The Southern District of Texas typically prosecutes more cases against more defendants than most other U.S. Attorney's Offices nationwide.
Reitz comes to the office from private practice with Hance Scarborough, LLP, where he represented and counseled clients in litigation and investigations before federal and state courts and agencies, and advised corporations, executives, and public entities on complex constitutional, regulatory, administrative, and commercial disputes.
Before entering private practice, Reitz served as the presidentially appointed, Senate-confirmed head of the Justice Department's Office of Legal Policy. As assistant attorney general over OLP, he was charged with developing and implementing DOJ's significant policy initiatives, handling special projects that implicate the interests of multiple DOJ components, and serving as the primary policy advisor to the U.S. attorney general. As chief regulatory officer, he also reviewed and coordinated all regulations promulgated by DOJ, and identified and vetted candidates for federal judgeships while coordinating the nomination and confirmation process with the White House and Senate.
Prior to his DOJ role, Reitz served as Sen. Ted Cruz's chief of staff, overseeing domestic policy, legislative, communications, administrative, Commerce Committee, Judiciary Committee, and Foreign Relations Committee teams, as well as several regional offices throughout Texas.
Reitz also served as Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton's deputy attorney general for legal strategy, where he planned, staffed, and executed the agency's most consequential affirmative lawsuits and legal initiatives on matters including immigration, federal-state-local relations, election integrity, voting rights, Big Tech, consumer protection, energy, and the U.S. and Texas Constitutions.
Earlier in his legal career, Reitz clerked for now-Chief Justice Jimmy Blacklock on the Texas Supreme Court and practiced corporate law and commercial litigation in Houston and Austin. He graduated from the University of Texas School of Law, where he was president of the Texas Federalist Society and editor in chief of the Texas Review of Law & Politics.
Before law school, Reitz served as an officer in the U.S. Marine Corps, spending nearly five years on active duty, including a deployment to the northern Helmand Province of Afghanistan, where he was embedded with the Afghan National Army. He continues to serve in the Marine Corps Reserve as a major.
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