Jessica Aber, the former U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, was found dead at her Alexandria home on Saturday at the age of 43. Police discovered her body after responding to a call about an unresponsive woman. The cause of death is under investigation, with the Virginia medical examiner’s office yet to determine an official cause.
Aber, a Biden appointee who resigned in January, coinciding with President Trump’s inauguration, was discovered by Alexandria Police Department officers at 9:20 a.m.
Aber was known for overseeing high-profile cases, including the prosecution of ex-CIA analyst Asif Rahman for leaking documents about Israel’s planned strike on Iran and cases against Russian nationals involved in fraud, money laundering and torture.
A California native, Aber earned her Bachelor of Arts from the University of Richmond in 2003 and her Juris Doctor from William & Mary Law School in 2006. She began her legal career as a law clerk for Magistrate Judge M. Hannah Lauck of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. In 2009, she joined the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia as an assistant U.S. attorney, handling cases involving financial fraud, public corruption, violent crime and child exploitation. From 2015 to 2016, she served as counsel to the assistant attorney general for the Criminal Division of the Department of Justice. In 2021, President Biden appointed her as the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia—one of the most important offices of federal prosecutors—a position she held until her resignation in January 2025, following President Trump’s inauguration.
Newsweek provides more details about her most recent cases:
In mid-January, Asif Rahman, a former CIA analyst, pleaded guilty to retaining and transmitting top secret national defense information to people who were not entitled to receive it, before the information then appeared on social media in October 2024.
Aber said at the time that Rahman had “disclosed top secret American documents in violation of his oath, his responsibility, and the law,” and his actions had “placed lives at risk, undermined U.S. foreign relations, and compromised our ability to collect vital intelligence in the future.”
The Justice Department said in late September that it had, along with the State and Treasury Departments and law enforcement, unsealed an indictment that charged a Russian national, named as Sergey Ivanov, with involvement in “multiple money laundering services that catered to cybercriminals, as well as the seizure of websites associated with three illicit cryptocurrency exchanges.”
Another Russian national, Timur Shakhmametov, was charged in the same indictment with conspiracy to commit and aid and abet bank fraud, one count of conspiracy to commit access device fraud, and one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering.
“Every step cybercriminals take in their pursuit of money leaves another track that leads us to their doorstep,” Aber said at the time, speaking on behalf of her team of hundreds of prosecutors, litigators and support personnel.
“And if you follow them on their path of greed, they will lead us to you. We will not stop, because while domains can always be seized, justice is unyielding.”
In 2024, Aber launched an investigation into a Virginia-based company and two of its senior executives for allegedly transferring sensitive American technology to a Russian telecommunications firm with deep ties to the Kremlin and Russia’s internal security and counterintelligence service.
Just a year earlier, she had helped spearhead an indictment against four Russian-affiliated individuals accused of torturing a U.S. national in Ukraine—underscoring her aggressive pursuit of justice in cases with international and national security implications.
Colleagues have expressed profound sadness at her passing. Erik Siebert, the current U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, praised Aber’s leadership and service, stating she was “unmatched as a leader, mentor and prosecutor, and she is simply irreplaceable as a human being.”
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Give them a little time to organize the evidence and announce another suicide.
Hmmmm?