President Joe Biden will nominate Michael Farbiarz, chief of legal counsel for the Port of New York and New Jersey, and Superior Court Judge Robert Kirsch as U.S. District Court for New Jersey, the New Jersey Globe has confirmed.
Farbiarz, 48, spent nearly ten years as Assistant US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, leading the counter-terrorism investigation. Farbiarz was the lead prosecutor for 11 secret Russian agents, including Anna Chapman, a Russian émigré who hid in plain sight in New York before being accused of being a spy. He also went after Somali pirates who had seized an American container ship in the Indian Ocean and an al Qaeda terrorist.
He joined the Port Authority in 2016 following the retirement of their longtime General Counsel. He also served as Deputy Inspector General.
Farbiarz is a graduate of Harvard University and Yale Law School. He served as a paralegal for US District Court Judge Michael Mukasey in the Southern District of New York and for Judge José Cabranes of the US Circuit Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. A former senior fellow at New York University Law School, he also practiced private practice with a leading New York law firm, Davis Polk & Wardell.
Kirsch, 56, has served as a Superior Court judge in Union County since 2010. He’s a Republican from Westfield, the same community that produced the newest Associate Justice of the New Jersey Supreme Court, Douglas Fasciale.
A graduate of Fordham Law School, Kirsch was nominated for the bench by Governor Jon Corzine and received one term in 2017. After stations in the family and civil department, he has been assigned to the criminal court since 2016.
Prior to his appointment as a judge, Kirsch served as an assistant US attorney in New Jersey for more than a decade.
Farbiarz and Kirsch will become the seventh and eighth federal judges nominated by Biden of New Jersey, after Donald Trump went four years without filling seats.
Your nominations will now be sent to the US Senate Judiciary, the first step in the confirmation process.
Biden nominated Farbiarz on the recommendation of US Senator Cory Booker, while senior state Senator Bob Menendez asked for Kirsch to be chosen. Menendez and Booker work together on nominations so that no New Jersey justice nominee is sent to the White House without the backing of both senators.
