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Andre Birotte Jr. (gov)

There is “growing consensus” that the Los Angeles Police Department’s inspector general, Andre Birotte Jr., will be nominated as U.S. Attorney for California’s Central District, according to The Los Angeles Times.

Neither the White House nor Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), who’s in charge of recommending Los Angeles’s next top federal prosecutor, would comment, the newspaper said. However, colleagues of Birotte have been interviewed by Federal Bureau of Investigation agents, the LAT said. Such background checks are a sign that a candidate is well along the way toward nomination.

LAPD Chief William J. Bratton told The LAT he met with an FBI agent on numerous occasions regarding Birotte. An unidentified person interviewed by the FBI told the LAT, “The inference I drew is that they’re doing the final vetting for him.”

Birotte, whose parents immigrated from Haiti, would be the first black man to serve as U.S. Attorney in the Central District, the LAT said.

Thomas P. O'Brien (Paul Hastings)

Feinstein interviewed three candidates in August, including Birotte, the newspaper said. The two other candidates were Brian J. Hennigan, a former federal prosecutor who is now a partner at Irell and Manella; and Michael Raphael, chief of the criminal appeals section in the U.S. Attorney’s office in LA.

Hennigan and Raphael have been notified that Feinstein won’t be recommending them to the White House for the job, the paper said.

The last Senate-confirmed U.S. Attorney in the district was Thomas P. O’Brien, who resigned last month to join the white-collar criminal defense practice at the Paul Hastings law firm in LA.