Karin Immergut

 ( 1960 Births ) 

As U.S. attorney, Immergut served as the district's top federal law enforcement official. She managed a staff of approximately 107 people, including 51 assistant U.S. attorneys, who handled civil litigation on behalf of the United States and criminal investigations and prosecutions involving violations of federal law such as white-collar crime, narcotics trafficking, violent crime, money laundering, and cybercrime. Immergut also served on the Advisory Committee of U.S. Attorneys.

In January 2008, Immergut applied to succeed Judge Garr King on the United States District Court for Oregon. She was initially considered the leading candidate for the post as the preferred choice of U.S. Senator Gordon H. Smith. But after news reports highlighted her role in the investigation of President Bill Clinton's sex scandal, she was not one of the final candidates for the position, which went to Marco A. Hernandez. She re-registered as a Republican at the beginning of Bush's first term as president, in the same month that she went to work for Mosman. She resigned from the office in July 2009 in order to be appointed as Multnomah County Circuit Court Judge.

On January 3, 2019, her nomination was returned to the president under Rule XXXI, Paragraph 6 of the United States Senate. On January 23, 2019, Trump announced his intent to renominate Immergut for a federal judgeship. Her nomination was sent to the Senate later that day. On February 7, 2019, her nomination was reported out of committee by a 20–2 vote. On July 31, 2019, the Senate confirmed her nomination by voice vote. She received her judicial commission on August 5.

On March 10, 2023, Immergut ruled that Salem police officer Robert Johnston had no way of knowing he violated Eleaqia McCrae's rights when he shot her with rubber bullets at a protest in 2020, a legal principle known as qualified immunity. Immergut overturned a jury's unanimous verdict that Johnston violated McCrae’s Fourth Amendment right not to be subjected to excessive force and erased the jury's decision to award McCrae $250,000 for economic loss and $800,000 in other damages. On September 16, 2024, a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found Immergut was wrong to throw out the jury’s award and that she should not have granted the officer immunity.

On July 14, 2023, Immergut upheld Oregon's gun control law, Measure 114, banning large capacity magazines and requiring a permit to purchase a gun, ruling that it falls in line with "the nation’s history and tradition of regulating uniquely dangerous features of weapons and firearms to protect public safety."

On October 4, 2025, Immergut temporarily blocked the Trump Administration from deploying the Oregon National Guard in Portland, pending further arguments in a lawsuit brought by the state and city, saying that President Trump's reasoning for doing so was "untethered to facts." In response, U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth ordered the deployment of federalized California and Texas National Guard troops to Portland; Immergut blocked these actions in an emergency hearing on October 5, saying that the actions "appear to be in direct contravention of my order." In response, Trump said, "that judge ought to be ashamed of himself", apparently unaware that Immergut, who he appointed in 2019, is a woman. On November 7, following a three-day trial, Immergut made her earlier temporary injunctions permanent, finding that Trump "did not have a lawful basis to federalize the National Guard."