Leahy: White House Delays Sending Key Department Of Justice Nominations

WASHINGTON -- Dec. 4, 2007 – Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) Tuesday exposed the White House for stalling key nominations for vacancies in the Department of Justice. The Administration Nov. 15 announced it intended to send nominations to Capitol Hill for the Deputy Attorney General, the Associate Attorney General, and the Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Division. Almost three weeks later, the Senate has not received the nominations.

Statement of Senator Patrick Leahy,

Chairman, Senate Judiciary Committee
White House Delays On Executive Branch Vacancies

December 4, 2007

It is December and there are few legislative days left to us before the Christmas holidays and the end of this session. I had hoped and planned to devote the energy and attention of the Judiciary Committee to working with the Administration to fill the remaining high-level vacancies at the Department of Justice by reviewing the nominations, holding the needed hearings and making significant progress.

Indeed, while we were preparing in October for the confirmation hearing on the Mukasey nomination to be Attorney General, I urged the President and others to work with us to make progress. We proceeded to prepare for and hold a significant hearing on the Mukasey nomination in which many important issues were raised. The Committee then proceeded to consider the nomination and, given concerns about the nominee’s answers to certain key questions, a number of Senators who had hoped to be able to support the nomination were not able to do so. We nevertheless proceeded and the nomination was reported to the floor. It was scheduled for debate by the Leader, expeditiously debated, and soon after confirmed.

Over the course of this year the Judiciary Committee’s investigation into the firing of United States Attorneys and into the influence of White House political operatives on federal law enforcement resulted in the resignations of the leadership of the Justice Department, including the Attorney General, the Deputy Attorney General, the Associate Attorney General, the chiefs of staff of the Attorney General and Deputy Attorney General, the White House liaison, and many others. There have also been a number of White House resignations, including that of Karl Rove and his deputies Sara Taylor and Scott Jennings.

As I met with Michael Mukasey in preparation for his hearing and in our conservations since his swearing in, I have emphasized the need to fill the remaining vacancies with nominees who will restore the independence of federal law enforcement. For months I have been talking publicly and privately as well about the need to name U.S. Attorneys around the country, where more than a quarter of those positions are not Senate-confirmed appointments.

With great fanfare, in the days before the congressional Thanksgiving recess, the White House made a show of releasing the names of a score of nominees. That “announcement” was mostly bluster. So, for example, today -- more than two and a half weeks after the grand announcements -- Mark R. Filip has not been nominated to be the Deputy Attorney General, Kevin O’Connor has not been nominated to be the Associate Attorney General, and Gregory Katsas has not been nominated to be the Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Civil Division at the Department of Justice. Nor have we received their questionnaires, their FBI background information or their ethics reports.

Indeed, we only this week received the questionnaires for the President’s nominations to head the important Civil Rights Division and the Tax Division at the Department of Justice, more than two weeks after those nominations were announced.

Further, with respect to United States Attorneys and United States Marshals vacancies, we have not seen the cooperation or expedition that I would have liked. We finally received the questionnaires and FBI background information on three U.S. Attorney nominees just yesterday. I have asked Committee staff to review these matters quickly and will ask Senators to consider the nominations of Diane J. Humetewa to be U.S. Attorney for the District of Arizona, Gregory Brower to be the U.S. Attorney for the District of Nevada, and Edmund Booth to be U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Georgia as promptly as possible and, if possible, as soon as this Thursday morning. I note that Ms. Humetewa and Mr. Brower are being named as replacements for two of the outstanding U.S. Attorneys who were fired on December 7 last year as part of the ill-advised partisan plan that, when we investigated, led to the resignations of Attorney General Gonzales and so many others who were involved. Paul Charlton and Daniel Bodgen should not have been fired and are stilled owed an explanation and apology by this Administration.

I will make progress when I can. I had hoped to hold a confirmation hearing on the nomination of Mark Filip to be the Deputy Attorney General, the second-highest official at the Justice Department, as soon as next Wednesday. I felt I could only proceed to do so if we received the paperwork and the nomination by yesterday in order to allow Senators an opportunity to prepare for the hearing on an expedited basis. Without those materials it would be ill-advised and far too rushed to proceed next week. Depending on when we receive the overdue materials, we may still be able to hold a hearing before this session ends, but time is fleeting.

This Administration has known since at least May 14, 2007, when the former Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty announced that he was resigning, that there was to be a vacancy in this important position. Yet even after he proceeded to resign, there was no one named. That was more than four months ago.

When the Administration prevailed upon Craig Morford to serve as the Acting Deputy Attorney General, I wrote to the White House counsel to ask whether Mr. Morford would transition from being named the acting to being the President’s nominee. That was back in July. I was trying back then to move forward and to put effective leadership in place. For my efforts, I was essentially told to mind my own business and that they would tell me who would be the new Deputy Attorney General when they decided who would be nominated to be the next Deputy Attorney General. I thank Mr. Morford for his service, for his willingness to answer the call when the Department was in complete disarray and for the personal sacrifices he has been called upon to make by being separated from his family for months and months.

By not providing the nominations to the highest-ranking vacancies within the Justice Department and not providing the basic background materials needed to review such nominations before the Thanksgiving recess, the Administration has once again foreclosed the opportunity to have these nominees considered by the Senate and in place this year. They will now necessarily carry over into the next session. That is unfortunate and unnecessary.

Source: Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy

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