John P. Cronan

John Peter Cronan (born 1976) is an American lawyer and former Assistant Attorney General in the United States Department of Justice who is a nominee to be a United States District Judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York.

Education

Cronan earned his Bachelor of Arts, magna cum laude, from Georgetown University and his Juris Doctor from Yale Law School.

Legal and academic career

After graduating law school, Cronan served as a law clerk to Judge Barrington D. Parker Jr. on both the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York and the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. He also clerked for Judge Robert Katzmann of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Cronan was an Assistant United States Attorney in the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, where he supervised the Terrorism and International Narcotics Unit and served in the office’s Civil Division. He previously served as the Acting Assistant Attorney General of the Criminal Division from November 2017 to July 2018. He is currently the Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division of the Department of Justice in Washington, D.C.. Cronan has also served as an adjunct professor at New York University School of Law, where he co-taught a seminar on federal criminal prosecutions.

Nomination to district court

On November 6, 2019, President Trump announced his intent to nominate Cronan to serve as a United States District Judge for the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. On December 2, 2019, his nomination was sent to the Senate. President Trump nominated Cronan to the seat vacated by Judge William H. Pauley III, who took senior status on March 1, 2018. On January 3, 2020, his nomination was returned to the President under Rule XXXI, Paragraph 6 of the United States Senate. On February 27, 2020, his renomination was sent to the Senate. His nomination is currently pending before the Senate Judiciary Committee. On March 4, 2020, a hearing on his nomination was held before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Memberships

Cronan has been a member of the Federalist Society since 2017. Since 1998, he has been an inactive member of Phi Beta Kappa.