A report published on Monday revealed what former U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia Jessica Aber, 43, who was found dead over the weekend, had been investigating and prosecuting.
According to the New York Post, Aber “had been in charge of some of the biggest cases targeting leaks in the CIA and Russian nationals carrying out fraud in America.”
Authorities are investigating Aber’s cause of death, other reports noted. She was found unresponsive at her home by Alexandria police just before 9:20 a.m. on Saturday.
Before stepping down in January following President Donald Trump’s inauguration, the Biden-nominated attorney secured one of her most high-profile courtroom victories when former CIA analyst Asif Rahman, 34, pleaded guilty to leaking top-secret documents detailing Israel’s plan to strike Iran last year.
The high-profile case involved Rahman posting classified documents on Telegram that revealed details of Israel’s planned October strike, ultimately forcing the Israeli government to delay its retaliatory attack on Tehran.
Aber shredded Rahman’s actions as a “violation of his oath, his responsibility, and the law,” as she said the leak “placed lives at risk, undermined U.S. foreign relations, and compromised our ability to collect vital intelligence in the future.”
Aber also led the prosecution against Eleview International Inc., a Virginia-based company whose two top executives were accused of orchestrating “three separate schemes to illegally transship sensitive U.S. technology to Russia,” according to the Department of Justice.
In November, executives Oleg Nayandin, 54, and Vitaliy Borisenko, 39, were charged with illegally exporting over $6 million worth of goods—including telecommunications equipment—to Russia. Prosecutors say the shipments were routed through ports in Turkey, Finland, and Kazakhstan to circumvent U.S. sanctions imposed on Moscow following its invasion of Ukraine, The Post reported.
The case came just two months after Aber secured indictments against two Russian nationals on charges of fraud and money laundering, said the outlet.
Sergey Ivanov and Timur Shakhmametov, whom the government had placed a $10 million reward, were allegedly involved in one the most extensive money laundering operations online that “catered to major cybercrime marketplaces and ransomware groups, and to prolific hackers responsible for some of the largest data breaches targeting critical U.S. financial infrastructure,” according to the Secret Service.
In addition to handling high-profile fraud and leak cases, Aber played a key role in the Justice Department’s unprecedented indictment of four Russian soldiers accused of committing war crimes against an American citizen in Ukraine.
According to the DOJ, the unnamed victim was abducted from his home in the Kherson region, where he was brutally beaten, tortured, and subjected to a mock execution, The Post noted further.
The defendants include commanding officers Suren Seiranovich Mkrtchyan, 45, and Dmitry Budnik, along with two lower-ranking soldiers identified in the indictment only by their first names, Valerii and Nazar, the outlet reported.
“We are proud to be at the forefront of the Justice Department’s effort to hold perpetrators of war crimes violations accountable in Ukraine and will continue to pursue them,” Aber said at the time.
Alexandria authorities said Saturday that the cause and manner of Jessica Aber’s death will be determined by the medical examiner. However, a family friend told NBC News that police believe she died from a longstanding medical condition.
Two former senior Justice Department officials familiar with the situation also told the outlet that investigators have found no indication of foul play.
Born and raised in Virginia, Aber graduated from the University of Richmond in 2003 and went on to earn her law degree from William & Mary Law School in 2006.
Before being appointed U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia (EDVA), she served as an assistant U.S. attorney in the same district beginning in 2009.
From 2015 to 2016, she also served as counsel to the assistant attorney general for the DOJ’s Criminal Division, The Post noted.
The Democratic Party’s Senate conference is currently at odds after Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) erupted into a tirade against a number of his colleagues over what he referred to as support for the Trump Administration.
Booker has argued that support for the legislation is part of a “poison pill” aligned with President Donald Trump’s policies, including tax cuts. The New Jersey lawmaker also argued that it will lead to cuts to social programs and disproportionate spending on police resources between blue and red states.
“The Democratic Party needs a wake-up call. I see law firms bending a knee to this president, not caring about the larger principles, that those free speech rights that you can take on any client, why are you bending the knee? I see universities that should be bastions of free speech bending at the knee to this president. I see businesses taking late-night talk show hosts off the air because they dare to insult a president,” Booker ranted on the Senate floor.
He then took aim at his Democrat colleagues in a move that has fiercely divided the conference, according to reports.
“And what are the very people here elected to defend the Constitution of the United States saying, ‘oh well today let’s look the other way and pass some resources’ that won’t go to Connecticut, that won’t go to Illinois, that won’t go to New York, that will go to the states he likes. That is complicity with an authoritarian leader who is trashing our Constitution. It’s time for Democrats to have a backbone. It’s time for us to fight. It’s time for us to draw lines,” Booker continued.
He went on to state that Democrats “deserve to lose” if they continue on their current path. “When are we going to stand together for principles that I just heard that were agreed with? When are we going to stand together? If we don’t stand as Democrats, we deserve to lose.”
According to a report from Punchbowl News, Booker delivered even more forceful remarks against his colleagues behind closed doors. “There’s a lot of us in this caucus that want to F***ING fight! And what’s bothering me right now is we don’t see enough fight in this caucus,” the senator reportedly said.
He accused Senators Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV) of “enabling Donald Trump to do a broadside attack on my state,” suggesting they were complicit in allowing Trump’s policies to harm blue states.
According to Punchbowl News reporter Max Cohen, Booker was “heated” when he exited the Senate floor. “The Democratic Party was about to give Donald Trump tens of millions of dollars when he has already told the Democratic Party, ‘I’m not gonna let blue states have this,’” Booker told the outlet.
“Booker: “They were about to be complicit to the very things they say out of another side of their mouth that they object to. Democrats need to learn to fight and fight [Trump] and stop him from hurting people. In this case, he would have hurt police officers in half the states”
The report comes as Senate Democrats remain divided on their best strategy to regain control of the chamber ahead of a very unfavorable map in 2028. Of the three toss-up seats identified by Cook Political Report, two are held by Democrats (Michigan, Georgia), while the party will also be facing an uphill battle to flip the seat in North Carolina following the retirement of Thom Tillis.
Seats in Minnesota and New Hampshire, both of which are held by retiring Democrats, also received a “lean D” rating from Cook, while only the seat held by Susan Collins (R-ME) received a “lean R” grade. The rest of seats up for grabs strongly lead towards one party or the other.