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Olson steps down as U.S. Attorney for Idaho
March 1, 2017
Wendy J. Olson, United States Attorney for the District of Idaho, resigned effective Saturday, February 25. Olson had served in that office since being appointed by President Barack Obama in June, 2010.

She is best known in Boundary County for prosecuting county resident Jeremy Hill for the killing of a grizzly bear on his property on May 8, 2011.

Olson said she left the U.S. Attorney’s Office because she “anticipated change coming under President Donald Trump’s administration.”

A native of Pocatello, she had been an Assistant United States Attorney with the District of Idaho since 1997.

She joined the Stoel Rives law firm as a partner in the litigation practice group February 27 in the firm’s Boise office.

As of February 26, 2017, Rafael M. Gonzalez, Jr. assumed leadership of the office as Acting United States Attorney. He has been the First Assistant United States Attorney since September of 2010. He had previously served as the office’s criminal chief. He has been with the office since March of 1995 and with the Department of Justice since September of 1991.

“As United States Attorney for the District of Idaho since 2010, Wendy Olson has been an indispensable and collaborative law enforcement partner in Idaho,” Gonzalez said. “Her efforts reflected the highest traditions of the Department of Justice and the U.S. Attorney community. We thank Wendy for her tireless work on behalf of the District of Idaho and the American people over the last 20 years, and we wish her the very best as she begins the next chapter of her distinguished career.”
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