Talk:David C. Weiss

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A sentence being removed from the article[edit]

I recently added the following sentence to the the second paragraph of the "Career" section: "Weiss was serving as acting U.S. Attorney for Delaware when he was nominated to the permanent position by then-president Donald Trump." The source is a CNN article [1] which is the source for the whole paragraph. An IP account has twice removed that sentence without explanation. I feel that this is valid information and that the background to his appointment as U.S. Attorney is incomplete without it. How do others feel? Pinging users @RadleyMadish and Losipov: who recently contributed to the article. MelanieN (talk) 15:45, 27 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

You are correct. Here is a quote which is being buried seven levels down at least by Yahoo: "In 2007, Weiss returned to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Delaware. In 2009, Barack Obama appointed Weiss to leadership positions at the Delaware office, where he served as both Acting and Interim U.S Attorney. In 2018, President Trump, following historic practice, named him U.S. Attorney upon the recommendation of the two U.S. senators from Delaware, Democrats Tom Carper and Chris Coons." 2603:9009:801:F64:DCA0:8415:A79B:AC55 (talk) 12:41, 26 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Wrong date regarding Acting US Attorney?[edit]

There is an inconsistency in the dating of Weiss's tenure as Acting US attorney: the infobox ends it in 2011 but the text of the article says 2018. I went looking for an explanation and the information seems to support the 2018 date. For example an article at Delaware Online authored by Associated Press, dated Nov. 18, 2017 titled “President to nominate David Weiss for US attorney in Delaware” at https://www.delawareonline.com/story/news/local/2017/11/18/president-nominate-david-weiss-us-attorney-delaware/877686001/ states

“President Donald Trump will nominate the acting U.S. attorney for Delaware, David Weiss, to take over the position permanently. Weiss’ nomination needs the confirmation of the U.S. Senate. Delaware’s senators, Democrats Tom Carper and Chris Coons, said Friday that they recommended Weiss to the White House for the job. Carper says he hopes the Senate will “swiftly confirm” Weiss. Weiss previously served as interim U.S. attorney, first assistant U.S. attorney and as an assistant federal prosecutor, handling cases of violent crimes and white-collar offenses.”

alacarte (talk) 13:37, 17 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I decided to "be bold" and make the change in the infobox but I almost never edit (especially for US info since I'm not familiar with American offices) so someone might want to check this. alacarte (talk) 13:46, 17 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Weiss was only Acting in the role prior to 2018; official sources support the 2018 date as the assuming of Office. -- Sleyece (talk)

I am pretty sure that Weiss was acting US attorney for Delaware twice, first during the first two years of the Obama administration (see [2] and [3]), from January 20, 2009 through January 24, 2011. Then Charles Oberly was US Attorney for Delaware until March 2017 [4] [5] [6]. Following Oberly's resignation, he again became acting US attorney, and was subsequently confirmed into the position, per the source referenced by Alacarte above and the ones already cited in the article.

Importantly, he was NOT acting US Attorney for the entire Obama administration - that is well-documented. the exact dates which he was acting and when confirmed are less well-documented. However, in the interest of being as correct as possible, I am going to edit the infobox to remove the currently demonstrably incorrect information. --2600:8800:1800:F300:B999:BBBA:B0E6:8715 (talk) 02:13, 4 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

U.S. Attorney terms are different than regular offices. Weiss was the Acting DA during both his predecessors' terms. After the other two retired, he assumed the office in his own right. He was acting in the role the entire Obama Admin, but it seems like in government records he had two separate acting terms. It only seems this way because his predecessors staggered the times they left office. -- Sleyece (talk) 04:35, 8 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

How could he have been Acting US Attorney for Delaware during the entire Obama administration when Charles Oberly was the Senate- Confirmed US Attorney for Delaware beginning January 24 2011? When a position is held by someone confirmed to the senate for that position no one can be "Acting" in that some role unless someone took a leave of absence or otherwise recused themselves from that role. I linked to several primary and reliable secondary sources to support my position and yours has none so I do not believe your assessment to be correct. (this is the same anon as the previous post) --2600:8800:1800:F300:4248:778:8E22:B679 (talk) 22:02, 10 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

To be more precise, if we refer to the biography of David C. Weiss on the US DOJ website, it very clearly places him in the role of Acting US Attorney for Delaware from 2009-2011, and states that he was First Assistant US Attorney for Delaware from 2007-2009 and 2012-2018. While it does not give specific dates in those years (which is quite annoying as finding good sourcing from those periods is challenging) both reliable sources and common sense make clear that he was not Acting in the role of US Attorney for Delaware during the 2011 to 2017 time period when Charles Oberly was in that role. I am going to be bold and revert the changes made before; I will not revert them again per the 3RR but hope that another editor can come along and examine this situation if needed. --2600:8800:1800:F300:9186:2FD1:67D8:FE0A (talk) 22:10, 10 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

It's not a bold edit to just revert and make declarations on talk, so I reverted back pending further discussion. -- Sleyece (talk) 02:31, 11 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Do you have a reliable source that indicates that David C. Weiss was Acting US Attorney for Delaware at the same time that Charles Oberly was the US Attorney for Delaware? Or a reliable source that indicates that one can serve as an Acting US Attorney at the same time as a senate-confirmed US Attorney occupies that position? You have offered no such source for that. Again, I do not wish to violate the 3RR and I would like to see other editors review this since right now it appears to be just the two of us who are paying attention. --2600:8800:1800:F300:3CAE:A7D0:A56D:4728 (talk) 05:00, 11 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I have posted a request for a third opinion on the WP:3O page. (Which did not exist when I used to be an active regular Wiki editor so I hope I have done so correctly). --2600:8800:1800:F300:3CAE:A7D0:A56D:4728 (talk) 05:05, 11 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Well done, 30 should settle things shortly. -- Sleyece (talk) 21:48, 11 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I'm here to provide a third opinion. The IP seems to be pretty clearly correct: Weiss's usual position was First Assistant US Attorney, but he became acting US Attorney when that office was vacant, which happened between 2009 and 2011 (DOJ bio) and again in the early Trump years after Oberly resigned (Law.com). Weiss ceased to be the acting US Attorney once Oberly was sworn in as the permanent one in 2011 (AP), as one would expect given the definition of "acting". See also this list. The IP's edit should be restored, in my view. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 23:51, 12 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Per 30, I have undone my own revert, restoring IP's edit. Please don't confuse this with 3RR. -- Sleyece (talk) 21:45, 13 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Glad we could resolve this (again, same editor with a different IP this time). --129.219.8.111 (talk) 00:50, 14 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Per reference 5, we know that he was appointed to his Acting role by George W. Bush. I do not see any source for the January 20 date above, though it obviously couldn't have been any later. The infobox seems to be missing his service under Bush. Anyone aware of a source for his start date? --Noren (talk) 06:05, 19 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]