Steven H. Cook

Steve Cook currently serves as Associate Deputy Attorney General in the United States Department of Justice.  In March of 2017, he was appointed to serve as the Deputy Attorney General’s point person on the Task Force for Crime Reduction and Public Safety—a task force created at the direction of the President to develop a nationwide strategy to reduce crime.  He now serves as the Director of Law Enforcement Affairs for the U.S. Department of Justice.  Prior to his current appointment, he served as the chief of the Criminal Division in the United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Tennessee where he had been an Assistant United States Attorney for 30 years.  During those 30 years, he worked in the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force; the General Crimes Section handling white-collar crime, fraud, and public corruption; and was the deputy criminal chief in the Narcotics and Violent Crime Section.  In those positions, he received dozens of awards and letters of commendation including the Directors Award for Superior Performance in connection with his work prosecuting violent gang members.  He is also the immediate past president of the National Association of Assistant U.S. Attorneys.  

Prior to coming to the United States Attorney’s Office, Mr. Cook clerked for a judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit and before that worked as a deputy sheriff and then as a police officer for seven years in Knoxville, Tennessee.  Mr. Cook earned his Doctor of Jurisprudence from the University of Tennessee in 1984, with high honors, and was a member of the Tennessee Law Review.  

Mr. Cook was chosen as one of The Politico’s 50 in 2017 for his work on national criminal justice issues.  He has testified multiple times before Congress in connection with proposed criminal justice legislation including bills involving the Electronic Communications Privacy Act and sentencing reform. He has appeared as a guest on numerous radio and television programs with regional and national audiences (including the O’Reilly Factor and Sean Hannity Show) and has appeared as a frequent panelist on forums and discussion panels (including programs hosted by the Washington Post, Atlantic Magazine, and Hastings Law Journal).  

Finally, Mr. Cook has served as a speaker or instructor at hundreds of events across the country ranging from events with international audiences to local police training.