HOUSTON — This is an official press release from the U.S. Department of Justice (USAO - Texas, Southern), published as received.
HOUSTON – Today Aaron Reitz took his oath as the new U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Texas. He was sworn in by U.S. District Judge Nicholas J. Ganjei. Reitz will lead one of the largest and busiest U.S. Attorney’s Offices in the country.
“I’m honored to serve as the chief federal law enforcement officer and lawyer for this mission-critical district,” said Reitz. “Our office will relentlessly combat violent crime, illegal immigration, drug and human trafficking, corruption, and fraud. We will faithfully uphold the rule of law and protect the public. Things are about to get very bad for criminals in the Southern District of Texas.”
Reitz comes to the office from private practice with Hance Scarborough, LLP where he represented and counseled clients in litigation and investigations before federal and state courts and agencies, and advised corporations, executives, and public entities on complex constitutional, regulatory, administrative, and commercial disputes.
Prior to that, Reitz served as the presidentially appointed, Senate-confirmed head of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Policy. As the assistant attorney general over OLP, Reitz was charged with developing and implementing DOJ’s significant policy initiatives, handling special projects that implicate the interests of multiple DOJ components, and serving as the primary policy advisor to the U.S. Attorney General. As chief regulatory officer, Reitz also reviewed and coordinated all regulations promulgated by DOJ. Lastly, he identified and vetted candidates for federal judgeships and coordinated the nomination and confirmation process with the White House and Senate.
Before DOJ, Reitz served as Senator Ted Cruz’s chief of staff, where he oversaw domestic policy, legislative, communications, administrative, Commerce Committee, Judiciary Committee, and Foreign Relations Committee teams, as well as several regional offices throughout the state of Texas.
Reitz also previously served as Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s deputy attorney general for legal strategy, where he planned, staffed, and executed the agency’s most consequential affirmative lawsuits and legal initiatives on matters including immigration, federal-state-local relations, election integrity, voting rights, Big Tech, consumer protection, energy, and the U.S. and Texas Constitutions.
Reitz clerked for now-Chief Justice Jimmy Blacklock on the Texas Supreme Court and practiced both corporate law and commercial litigation in Houston and Austin. He graduated from the University of Texas School of Law, where he was president of the Texas Federalist Society and editor in chief of the Texas Review of Law & Politics.
Before law school, he was an officer in the U.S. Marine Corps. He spent nearly five years on active duty and deployed to the northern Helmand Province of Afghanistan, where he was embedded with the Afghan National Army. Reitz is still in the Marine Corps Reserve as a major.
As U.S. Attorney, Reitz is the chief federal law enforcement officer for one of the largest districts in the United States. The SDTX typically prosecutes more cases against more defendants than most other USAOs nationwide, representing 43 counties and over 10 million people, and covering 44,000 square miles. The district is comprised of seven U.S. District Court divisions in Houston, Galveston, Victoria, Corpus Christi, Brownsville, McAllen, and Laredo.
