528: 'I'm grateful for every minute I have in this job'

Plain Talk

"This is the best job I could ever imagine," North Dakota U.S. Attorney Mac Schneider said on this episode of Plain Talk.

Schneider was appointed to that position by President Joe Biden. Later this year, when America elects a new president, he may be out of a job, depending on how the country casts its ballots. A Republican president isn't likely to keep a Democratic appointee, but if Vice President Kamala Harris wins, would Schneider want another term in the office?

He says yes. "I'm grateful for every minute I have in this job."

My co-host Chad Oban and I asked Schneider about whether his office has seen any local blowback from national politics, where the FBI and the Department of Justice have, in recent years, been accused of political bias by both Republicans and Democrats. FBI Director Christopher Wray, who has rejected demands to resign from former President Donald Trump, the man who appointed him, and who recently visited North Dakota, has frequently been at the center of interparty food fights.

Schneider says national-level drama has had little impact on federal law enforcement operations in North Dakota. "Not at all," was his reply to our question.

"In North Dakota, the FBI is, rightly so, seen as law enforcement," he said.

"I don't pick that up at all that there's any distrust of federal law enforcement here in North Dakota," he continued.

We also asked Schneider about the recent federal prosecution of former Republican state Sen. Ray Holmberg, which resulted in a guilty plea to crimes related to traveling to Europe to pay for sex with minors. Schneider was recused from the case by the Department of Justice because he, like Holmberg, served the Grand Forks community in the state Senate. "You can just about imagine how I feel," he said when asked what it was like to watch someone he worked closely with plead guilty to those crimes.

Also on this episode, Oban and I discussed school schedules, and how their complexities can make things hard for parents, and also the on-going struggles of the North Dakota High School Activities Association to deal with terrible, often bigoted behavior at sporting events.

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