"MAGA stooge" will be Rhode Island's top federal cop for the next 3 months
By Alexander Castro, Rhode Island Current
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| Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse is not a Calenda fan |
Charles “Chas” Calenda was sworn in as interim U.S. Attorney for the District of Rhode Island on Tuesday morning. Chief U.S. District Judge John J. McConnell Jr. presided over the ceremony at the federal courthouse in Providence.
Calenda, a Republican, will act as Rhode Island’s top federal law enforcement officer, representing the U.S. Department of Justice, and work across the street from the courthouse at the DOJ’s local office.
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| Calenda (left) bears quite a resemblance to "Newman," played by Wayne Knight on the Jerry Seinfeld Show. Might be why Trump picked him. |
Calenda did not respond to requests for additional comment. But he told The Boston Globe, which first reported his appointment on Saturday, that the interim term will last 120 days, or until someone is found to permanently fill the role. He also said that he will step down from his role as a West Greenwich town councilor.
When asked Tuesday about the expected duration of Calenda’s term, Lindsay Lague, a spokesperson for the Rhode Island DOJ office, acknowledged the request but could not immediately confirm a definite timeline.
Calenda, who earned his law degree from the University of Miami School of Law, has worked for close to two decades as a trial attorney and former prosecutor, according to the U.S. attorney’s office and Calenda’s LinkedIn. From 2006 to 2018, he worked in the Rhode Island Attorney General’s office as a special assistant attorney general, a role which saw him assist federal prosecutors on select cases.
After litigating for the AG’s office in Family Court, Calenda worked on offenses such as sexual assault, robbery, homicide and burglary.
He also spent several years in the AG’s Narcotics and Organized Crime Unit as the lead gun court prosecutor, handling “most firearm-related felony offenses brought before the Superior Court,” according to his LinkedIn.
After the AG’s office, Calenda worked as a trial attorney at the Coventry firm Inman & Tourgee. He began his tenure as West Greenwich town councilor in February 2024, according to his LinkedIn.
Calenda himself ran for Rhode Island Attorney General in 2022 and secured about 38% of the vote, losing to incumbent Democrat Peter Neronha’s 62%. Calenda, who reactivated his campaign finance account in October, has not commented publicly on whether he will remain a Republican contender in the 2026 race to replace Neronha, whose term ends in early 2027.
The federal courthouse and DOJ office have had a consistent back-and-forth in recent months. Multistate lawsuits filed against Donald Trump’s administration in district court — many of them joined or co-led by Neronha — have been parried just as often by the justice department attorneys who work across the street.
Until now, the attorneys working in the Providence office have largely been remainders from Joe Biden’s administration, with the former president’s 2021 appointee Zachary Cunha in charge of the office until his February resignation.
U.S. attorneys customarily leave their posts when the presidency changes. Cunha, whose resignation was spurred by a termination notice from President Donald Trump, was the last U.S. attorney among the New England states to depart his post during the presidential turnover.
Until early December, First Assistant United States Attorney Sara Miron Bloom served as acting U.S. attorney after Cunha’s departure. Calenda said Tuesday that Bloom did “a remarkable job keeping this office stable and running for the last ten plus months.”
The Trump administration finally maneuvered to fill the role on Dec. 23, when U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi ordered Calenda’s appointment. The interim U.S. attorney’s statement Tuesday thanked Bondi and the DOJ “for placing their trust in me to oversee this very important office.”
A copy of Bondi’s Dec. 23 appointment letter was not immediately available from either the U.S. DOJ or the Rhode Island office.
Rhode Island’s junior Democratic Senator Sheldon Whitehouse was less happy with the appointment when it was first announced publicly, and castigated “the MAGA Department of Justice” for choosing Calenda as U.S. attorney.
“There will be no blue slip and we will be rid of him soon enough,” Whitehouse said in a statement, referring to the practice where home-state senators sign off on presidential attorney and judicial nominees via a “blue slip” form sent by the Senate Judiciary Committee.
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Rhode Island Current is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Rhode Island Current maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Janine L. Weisman for questions: info@rhodeislandcurrent.com.