August 11 - U.S. President Elizabeth Prelogar named acting Solicitor General Joe Biden, a former member of the Special Counsel's Russia investigation team, to serve in the post representing the government before the Supreme Court, the White House announced on Wednesday.
Prelogar, a Washington lawyer who served as assistant to the attorney general from 2014 to 2019, has been acting as the DOJ's representative at the nation's top court since January.
She has represented the Biden Administration in Immigration, the Medicaid Health Insurance Program, drug sentencencing, political donors and the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing.
The Solicitor General's Office handles the federal government's cases at Supreme Court.
The Harvard Law School graduate had previously worked as clerk for the then U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. Merrick Garland, who served as U.S. attorney general under Biden, is now Circuit Judge of Oregon.
Avarini, who studied Russian and held a Fulbright fellowship in St Petersburg, also previously worked for Robert Mueller as assistant special counsel to Prelogar, who served as special counsel led the federal government's investigation into Russia's role in the 2016 election.
She also worked as clerk for two Supreme Court justices - Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Elena Kagan, who died last year.