Matthew Graves hadn’t thought much about his ideal career path, but when he was in middle school, one of his teachers suggested he’d make a good lawyer.
By the time he was in college, he didn’t know much about prosecution or how U.S. Attorney’s Offices worked, and he was unfamiliar with how the U.S. Attorney for D.C. differed from the other 93 offices across the country.
But Graves got an opportunity to intern in the office under then-U. S. Attorney Eric Holder. He watched the 12-16-hour work days some of the prosecutors had, admired the trial lawyers and witnessed how meaningful it was to work with victims and their families.
At the end of that summer program, Graves knew he wanted to be a prosecutor.
President Joe Biden appointed Graves to be the U.S. Attorney for D.C., and he was sworn in for that role on Nov. 5, 2021.
Graves announced his plans to step down in December, and in a wide-ranging exit interview with WTOP, he touted the role his office has played in combating violent crime.
“It takes longer to get your feeling of safety back than it does to lose it, but it feels like, for many of our fellow residents, they’re getting that feeling back,” Graves said.
When Graves started in the role, courts remained backlogged in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. Most in-person proceedings had been stopped, “and this incredible backlog of cases had been built up that our system had never seen before,” he said.
Eventually, some of the cases were able to proceed, but the backlog continued because of restrictions on the number of jury trials and grand jury proceedings, which are necessary to get cases indicted, Graves said.
In addition to the backlog, the city’s embattled crime lab had lost its accreditation and wasn’t able to process evidence. Graves described that circumstance, coupled with the backlog of cases, as “two once-in-a-generation storms happening at the same time.”
Soon thereafter, crime began to surge and some community members became critical of the office, arguing it hadn’t done enough to help keep violent offenders out of neighborhoods.
To craft cases that can be proven beyond a reasonable doubt, Graves said, “even if you’re moving quickly, those kinds of cases can take four, six, nine months sometimes.” Then, there are “a whole host of reasons built into the system for both sides, both the prosecution and the defense, to ask for some more time to make sure that everybody is ready for trial.”
By early 2022, the office had focused its attention on reversing the troubling trends. There are daily reviews of every gun arrest “to determine whether they should be federally prosecuted or prosecuted in D.C. Superior Court,” Graves said, and the office launched proactive investigations against gangs.
In 2024, D.C. reported a 35% reduction in violent crime compared to the year before, including 87 fewer homicides, “the least amount of total violent crime reported in 50 years,” Graves said.
And two weeks into 2025, Graves said the numbers are better than at this point in 2024.
“Unfortunately there’s just no silver bullet,” Graves said. “We felt the urgency of the work. We understood the consequences of having all these people in the community, but some of these investigations just take time.”
U.S. Attorneys aren’t practicing lawyers, and Graves described his role as “a big management responsibility.” He oversees a team of 800-900 lawyers, staff and contractors, and said he only turns his cellphone notifications off when he’s on a flight. It’s the first thing he looks at before going to bed, and the first thing he reaches for when he wakes up in the morning.
He said he tries to routinely exercise and dedicate time for family, “but it is a pretty all consuming job,” he said.
“Being in this role, it’s a unique opportunity to do good in the District, the nation and even the world,” Graves said.
Prosecutors are driven by victims, he said, and during his over three years as U.S. Attorney for D.C., Graves was motivated by the case of Gerald Watson. In December 2018, Watson, a 15-year-old boy, went out to play basketball, “and he was hunted down that day by another teenager from a different neighborhood who was looking to harm someone, anyone from Gerald’s neighborhood,” Graves said.
“You really want to stop there from being more individuals who don’t come home after going out to play basketball after school, and that really fuels us, and is why we do what we do, why we work so hard, and why we’re so committed to this work,” he added.
Graves said he’d always planned to step down in 2025: “I was appointed by a president. I serve at the pleasure of a president. With a change in administration, it just seemed if I was going to leave in 2025, this is a good, natural break and a time to leave.”
Bridget Fitzpatrick, principal assistant U.S. attorney, will become the acting U.S. Attorney when Graves steps down later this week.
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