By Steve Neavling
President Biden’s pick to serve as DEA administrator, Anne Milgram, has been sworn in this week, becoming the first political appointee to lead the agency since the Obama administration.
The U.S. Senate confirmed her nomination on June 24.
Several acting administrators served in the top role under former President Donald Trump.
“I am honored to lead the dedicated professionals of the Drug Enforcement Administration, who work tirelessly at home and abroad to carry out DEA’s vital mission of making our communities safer and healthier,” Milgram said in a news release Monday.
Milgram served as New Jersey attorney general from 2007 to 2010.
Before her appointment, Milgram was a professor of practice and distinguished scholar in residence at New York University School of Law. She focused on criminal justice reform, using data, analytics and technology.
Milgram’s law career began in 1997, when she served as an assistant district attorney in the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office in New York City. She joined the Justice Department as a federal prosecutor in 2001, leading the department’s human trafficking prosecutions.
Milgram graduated summa cum laude from Rutgers University and received a master’s degree from the University of Cambridge and a law degree from New York University School of Law.
Milligram’s tenure begins in the midst of an opioid crisis and the legalization of recreational marijuana in many states.
