Republican Attorney General-elect Kris Kobach is nominating former federal prosecutor Tony Mattivi to run the Kansas Bureau of Investigation.
Mattivi had run unsuccessfully against Kobach for attorney general in the Republican primary for attorney general. He later endorsed Kobach in the general election. His name has been circulating as a candidate to run the KBI for weeks.
“Tony Mattivi is a highly qualified public safety professional with decades of experience working with law enforcement to put away some of the nation’s most violent and dangerous offenders,” Kobach said in a statement.
“Along the campaign trail, I quickly realized that Tony is dedicated to seeking justice and committed to ensuring that all Kansas law enforcement officers are valued and supported. These are goals we share.”
Mattivi, who is leaving a job in the private sector to run the KBI, is expected to make between $130,000 and $140,000 in the role.
He would be the 13th director of the KBI since 1939. He replaced Kirk Thompson, who is retiring after the first of the year. His appointment is subject to Senate confirmation.
The agency has a $39.8 million budget and roughly 354 employees.
Mattivi, a Topeka attorney who serves as vice president and general counsel of the health care company MedCor, had worked as an assistant U.S. attorney from 1998 to 2020.
Mattivi spent more than four years as the trial counsel in the prosecution of Abd Al-Rahim Hussain Muhammed Al-Nashiri, who was charged with masterminding the attack that killed 18 on the U.S.S. Cole destroyer in 2000.
Mattivi prosecuted Terry Lee Loewen, the former U.S. Marine who pled guilty to
attempting to detonate a van filled with high explosives at the Wichita airport on behalf
of al-Qaeda during the Christmas travel season.
He also prosecuted John T. Booker, who pled guilty to trying to detonate a truck bomb at the base hospital on Fort Riley on behalf of the Islamic State.
He also headed a team of Justice Department prosecutors who convicted three Kansas militia members for plotting to blow up an apartment building and slaughter more than a
hundred Somali Muslim refugees as they worshipped in their mosque.
He also served as an assistant Kansas attorney general from 1996 to 1998 when Carla Stovall was attorney general.
He also worked as an assistant district attorney in Shawnee County from 1995 to 1996 and as a paramedic for two years in Douglas County.
In the early 1990s, he was operations director for TEK Ambulance Inc. in Crystal Lake, Illinois.
He has a bachelor’s degree in aviation management from Metropolitan State University in Denver and a law degree from Washburn University.
