Greg Brower (USDOJ)

Former Nevada U.S. Attorney Gregory A. Brower next week will become a partner at the Las Vegas-based Snell & Wilmer L.L.P., the law firm announced today. Brower resigned Thursday as Daniel Bogden was sworn in as the district’s new U.S. Attorney. Bogden, who was confirmed Sept. 15, was fired in 2006 as part of the Bush administration’s U.S. Attorney purge.

Brower had served as the district’s head prosecutor since December 2007. As a partner in the firm, Brower will focus on complex civil litigation, criminal investigations, regulatory enforcement actions, corporate compliance matters, internal investigations and administrative law issues, according to the firm.

Brower has been mentioned as a possible Republican opponent for Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) in 2010 or as a Nevada attorney general candidate.

Deborah Gilg (Gilg, Kruger & Troia)

As four new Obama-appointed U.S. Attorneys took their oaths of office this week, their predecessors resigned. They are:

• Hawaii: Edward H. Kubo Jr. resigned yesterday. He had been the Hawaii’s U.S. Attorney since 2001. Kubo recently was one of six people who was nominated to fill a vacancy on the state First Circuit Court.  Florence Nakakuni was sworn in yesterday. She was confirmed Sept. 29.

• Nebraska: Joe W. Stecher resigned this morning. He has been the district’s U.S. Attorney since 2007. Stecher said, “I have a few options” both in the private and public sectors. Deborah Gilg was sworn in today. She was confirmed Sept. 29.

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  Daniel Bogden (Getty Images)

  Nevada: Gregory A. Brower resigned this morning. He had been the district’s U.S. Attorney since 2007. Brower has not announced official plans but has been mentioned as a possible Republican opponent for Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) in 2010 or as a Nevada attorney general candidate. Daniel Bogden was sworn in 10 a.m. Pacific Time. He was confirmed Sept. 15.  Bogden was fired in 2006 as part of the Bush administration’s U.S. Attorney purge. Reid recommended him to President Obama for his old job.

• Western District of Washington: Jeffrey C. Sullivan resigned today. He had been the district’s interim U.S. Attorney since John McKay was forced out during the U.S. Attorney firings in 2006. Sullivan will remain in the office, working as a prosecutor in the criminal division. Jenny Durkan was sworn in this morning. She was confirmed Sept. 29.

Andrew Ramonas contributed to this report.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid received some flak in the Las Vegas Sun over the weekend for his decision to recommend that Daniel Bogden come back as the Nevada U.S. Attorney.

Daniel Bogden was one of the six U.S. Attorneys ousted by the Bush White House (Getty Images)

The Nevada Democrat urged President Obama in March to reinstate the former U.S. Attorney who was fired during the 2006 Bush White House purge. “I just think it’s so unfair what happened to him,” Reid told the Sun in March.

But the Sun said Saturday that Reid’s decision has “demoralized some prosecutors in the office and astonished other members of the legal community.”

Many of the prosecutors interviewed by The Sun said Bogden was aloof, had poor management skills and failed to diversify his staff at the Nevada U.S. Attorney’s Office.

One of the 50 prosecutors in the office told The Sun that the move was “disheartening.”

“It’s not what Obama is all about,” the lawyer told The Sun.

D.C. attorneys were also skeptical of Bogden. One “beltway-connected lawyer” told The Sun that many veteran Justice Department lawyers were “flabbergasted” by Reid’s recommendation.

“People in Washington don’t quite get it,” the lawyer told The Sun. “The career guys at the Justice Department who have been around a long time have never seen this happen before.”

Bogden told The Sun he “certainly would be willing to address those matters” after the fate of his recommendation is decided.

“But right now is not the best time to talk,” Bogden said.

The Sun does point out that Bogden has some other backers besides Reid including Las Vegas FBI chief Ellen Knowlton, U.S. District Judge Howard McKibben and attorney Craig Denney, who worked in the Nevada U.S. Attorney office.

“I never saw any instances of him being unfair,” Denney told the Sun. “He was always committed to doing justice, and that’s what the top federal prosecutor of the state should do.”

Assistant U.S. Attorney Greg Damm has served up a grand jury subpoena to the Las Vegas Review-Journal seeking identifying information of people who commented on a May 26 article about an ongoing tax evasion trial.

One commenter who used the name “Louis D. Brandeis” called Damm, the prosecutor, “evil incarnate and everything that is against the American justice system.” Others expressed anti-government sentiment of the kind that seems to flourish in the West.

The paper’s editor Thomas Mitchell wrote about the subpoena in his weekly column:

What the prosecutors don’t appear to understand is that we don’t have most of what they are seeking. We don’t require registration. A person could use a fictitious name and e-mail address, and most do. We have no addresses or phone numbers.

According to Mitchell, the subpoena requests the “kitchen sink”:

“full name, date of birth, physical address, gender, ZIP code, password prompts, security questions, telephone numbers and other identifiers … [and] the IP address” of people who commented on the May 26 article.

Mitchell says the paper has no idea what potential crime is being investigated. Mitchell then goes on to explain that the paper will comply with the subpoena, while seeking to narrow its scope, because fighting it would be futile, given that commenters don’t have shield law protection.

He added:

To add prior restraint to the chilling effect of the sweeping subpoena, we were warned: “You have no obligation of secrecy concerning this subpoena; however, any such disclosure could obstruct and impede an ongoing criminal investigation. …”