NASHVILLE (AP) — U.S. Attorney Don Cochran said on Monday he is leaving his post in Nashville at the end of the month at the request of the White House and the Department of Justice.

Cohran took the post in 2017. His accomplishments include helping form Project Safe Nashville, which doubled the number of federal firearms prosecutions, according to a news release from the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Middle District of Tennessee. The initiative has since expanded to include the entire district. Cochran also increased the number of federal prosecutors in the district.

Cochran previously served as Assistant U.S. Attorney in Birmingham, Alabama, where he successfully prosecuted the final defendant charged in the 1963 bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church.

Cochran said in the news release that serving as U.S. Attorney in Nashville has been "the highest honor of my professional life."

First Assistant Mary Jane Stewart will take over as Acting U.S. Attorney.