Tony West was appointed the Acting Associate Attorney General on March 9, 2012. Previously, he was nominated by President Barack Obama to be the Assistant Attorney General for the Justice Department's Civil Division on January 22, 2009. He was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on April 20, 2009.

As the largest litigating division in the Department of Justice, the Civil Division represents the United States in legal challenges to Congressional statutes, Administration policies, and federal agency actions.  These include: defending the President’s health care reform legislation against constitutional challenges; litigating national security cases, such as habeas corpus petitions brought by detainees at Guantanamo Bay; and leading the Department’s civil enforcement action filed in response to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.  The Civil Division also defends the President, Cabinet officers, and other federal employees in lawsuits filed against them throughout the country.

Mr. West has focused on these traditional areas, as well as bolstering the Civil Division’s affirmative civil enforcement efforts, such as health care fraud, mortgage fraud, procurement fraud, and other civil actions to recover taxpayer money lost to fraud and abuse. Since January 2009, the Civil Division has recovered over $8.5 billion through affirmative civil enforcement under the False Claims Act.

In addition, Mr. West has emphasized the Civil Division’s responsibility to enforce the nation’s consumer protection laws.  Since January 2009, the Consumer Protection Branch has convicted over 100 defendants for illegal activities in connection with harming consumers and imposed criminal penalties, civil penalties, and restitution exceeding $3.6 billion.  During this same period, over 70 defendants were sentenced to some form of incarceration, receiving a total of more than 280 years in prison.  Mr. West’s efforts to protect consumers also include serving as a co-chair of the Mortgage Fraud Working Group, the Residential Mortgage-Backed Securities Working Group, and the Consumer Protection Working Group of the President’s Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force. 

Mr. West first served in the Department of Justice a year after graduating from law school.  From 1993 through 1994, he served as a Special Assistant to the Deputy Attorney General.  From 1994 to 1999, he was an Assistant United States Attorney in the Northern District of California.  From 1999 to 2001, Mr. West served as a state Special Assistant Attorney General in California.         

Prior to returning to the Justice Department, Mr. West was a litigation partner at Morrison & Foerster LLP in San Francisco.

Mr. West graduated with honors from Harvard College, where he served as publisher of the Harvard Political Review, and received his law degree from Stanford Law School, where he was elected President of the Stanford Law Review.