Dana Michelle Nessel[1] (born April 19, 1969) is an American politician and lawyer, currently serving as the 54th Attorney General of Michigan since January 2019.

[16][17] She is the first Democrat to serve as attorney general since Jennifer Granholm left the office in 2003, sixteen years earlier to become the new Michigan Governor.

[18] Nessel immediately withdrew Michigan from eight federal lawsuits initiated by Schuette involving the separation of church and state, LGBTQ discrimination, environmental protection, and abortion.

[20] Before Nessel took office, the Michigan Department of Attorney General did not have any personnel assigned solely to the investigation and prosecution of hate crimes.

[22] Under her Consumer Protection Division, Nessel launched the state's first Payroll Fraud Enforcement Unit to investigate Michigan establishments that illegally misclassify workers or withhold wages and benefits.

[24] Keeping her promise to protect and defend consumers and ratepayers, Nessel saved utility customers $3.6 million after intervening in SEMCO Energy's gas recovery plan case.

[28] The Michigan state government had been accused of underreporting deaths from COVID-19 that had occurred in long-term care facilities, and had denied freedom of information requests to investigate the matter.

[32] Additionally, Nessel joined a bipartisan group of state attorneys general in filing a brief in the U.S. Supreme Court in Barr v. American Assn.

[32] On March 2, 2023, Nessel announced that she was among several Jewish government officials targeted in antisemitic threats made on social media by a heavily armed Michigan man.

The investigation team has reviewed 130 cases for potential charges, 50 of which were closed because the statute of limitations barred prosecution or the priest in question had died.

[39] In a February 2019 news conference, Nessel accused Catholic Church leadership of failing to cooperating with law enforcement, and criticized them for encouraging some victims to sign confidential settlements or nondisclosure agreements.

[49][50] The charges against Simon were dismissed in 2020; Nessel's office appealed, but a Michigan Court of Appeals panel unanimously upheld the dismissal in 2022; in a concurring opinion, Judge Elizabeth L. Gleicher criticized the investigation into Simon as a "sham" and wrote that the former university president was a "scapegoat" and "high profile target, selected to assuage public anger rather than to protect the integrity of the law.

[56] In June 2019, Nessel filed suit independently in Ingham County Circuit Court, seeking an order requiring Line 5 to shut down (permanently decommission) "after reasonable notice"; the suit argues that the operation of Line 5 violates the public trust doctrine, is a common-law public nuisance, and violates the Michigan Environmental Protection Act because of its likeliness to cause pollution to and destruction of the Great Lakes and other natural resources.

The suit seeks to hold the companies financially responsible for all past and future costs associated with the contamination at dozens of sites across the state of Michigan.

[66] On June 13, 2019, Michigan Attorney General Nessel's office dismissed all pending criminal cases tied to the Flint water crisis.

[67] The dismissal effectively ended prosecutions of eight current and former officials accused of neglecting their duties and allowing Flint residents to drink tainted, dangerous water.

[67] The decision to dismiss all charges was met with considerable outrage from Michiganders, clean water activists, and residents of Flint, the latter who felt their crisis was being forgotten.

Prosecutors Fadwa Hammoud and Kym Worthy, who oversaw the case, blamed missteps by the previous prosecution team for their office's decision, citing "immediate and grave concerns about the investigative approach and legal theories."

The St. Vincent adoption agency, a Catholic organization, sued Nessel, asking to be allowed to continue operating under state contract as before the new policy.

U.S. District Judge Robert Jonker ruled in favor of the adoption agency, writing that "the state's new position targets St. Vincent's religious beliefs.

[72] Shortly after assuming office, Nessel joined a coalition of other attorneys general in a lawsuit to support the Affordable Care Act (PPACA).

Nessel cites the “hundreds and thousands” of residents in Michigan who would lose access to healthcare, particularly those with pre-existing conditions, as her reason for joining the suit.

[74] Nessel announced in January 2022 that after a months-long inquiry into the Michigan participants in the Trump fake electors plot, she had closed down the state probe and asked the U.S. Justice Department to open a criminal investigation.

[78] Nessel met her wife Alanna Maguire while they were both working on the legal case DeBoer v. Snyder, which was ultimately successful in striking down Michigan's ban on same-sex marriage.