Statement Of Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.),
Chairman, Senate Judiciary Committee,
On 2007 Executive Nominations
December 19, 2007
As the first session of the 110th Congress concludes, we
should note that the Senate has worked hard on executive nominations.
In addition to confirming 40 lifetime appointments to the Federal
bench, we confirmed 22 of this President’s nominations for high-ranking
Executive Branch positions, including the confirmations of nine U.S.
Attorneys, four U.S. Marshals, and nine other important positions. We
achieved these numbers in a year when our investigation into the mass
firing of U.S. Attorneys, which triggered a host of resignations by
senior White House and Justice Department officials, led the Judiciary
Committee to devote significant time to rebuilding the integrity and
independence of the Justice Department.
We held hearings on nine executive nominations,
including a two-day hearing on the nomination of Michael B. Mukasey to
be Attorney General of the United States and another hearing on the
nomination of Judge Mark Filip to be Deputy Attorney General of the
United States, the top two positions at the Justice Department. We also
held hearings on the nominations of Michael J. Sullivan to be Director
of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives; Ronald Jay
Tenpas to be Assistant Attorney General, Environment and Natural
Resources Division, Department of Justice; Ondray T. Harris to be
Director, Community Relations Service, Department of Justice; David W.
Hagy, to be Director of the National Institute of Justice, Department of
Justice; Scott M. Burns, to be Deputy Director of National Drug Control
Policy, Executive Office of the President ; Cynthia Dyer, to be Director
of the Violence Against Women Office, Department of Justice; and Nathan
J. Hochman, to be an Assistant Attorney General, Tax Division,
Department of Justice.
We favorably reported 20 executive nominations, and
the full Senate has proceeded to confirm 22 executive nominations,
including four additional nominations discharged from the Judiciary
Committee and confirmed today – those of Joseph P. Russoniello to be
U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of California, Cynthia Dyer to
be Director of the Violence Against Women Office, Nathan J. Hochman, to
be Assistant Attorney General of the Tax Division at the Justice
Department, and Explosives, and Scott M. Burns, to be Deputy Director of
National Drug Control Policy, Executive Office of the President – and
one additional nomination confirmed today, that of Julie L. Myers to be
Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security.
I thank the Members of the Judiciary Committee for
their hard work all year in considering these important nominations. I
especially thank those Senators who have given generously of their time
to chair confirmation hearings throughout the year.
These nominations come at a critical time for the
nation. Over the course of this year, during which the Judiciary
Committee investigated the firing of U.S. Attorneys, we faced the most
serious threat to the effectiveness and professionalism of the Justice
Department since Watergate and the Saturday Night Massacre. Under
this President, the Justice Department
suffered a severe crisis of leadership that allowed our justice system
to be corrupted by political influence. The crisis of leadership that
led to numerous resignations and has taken a heavy toll on the tradition
of independence that has long guided the Department and protected it
from political influence. This crisis has also taken a heavy toll on
morale at the Department and in confidence among the American people.
Our work to restore the Justice Department also
including reporting nine U.S. Attorney nominations: James Russell
Dedrick to be U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Tennessee,
Thomas P. O'Brien to be U.S. Attorney for the Central District of
California, Edward Meacham Yarbrough to be U.S. Attorney for the Middle
District of Tennessee, Rosa Emilia Rodriguez-Velez to be U.S. Attorney
for the District of Puerto Rico, Joe W. Stecher to be U.S. Attorney for
the District of Nebraska, John Wood to be U.S. Attorney for the Western
District of Missouri, Diane J. Humetewa to be U.S. Attorney for the
District of Arizona, Gregory A. Brower to be U.S. Attorney for the
District of Nevada, and Edmund A. Booth, Jr. to be U.S. Attorney for the
Southern District of Georgia. Some replace outstanding U.S. Attorneys
who were fired almost a year ago as part of the ill-advised, partisan
plan to fire well performing U.S. Attorneys.
We also reported the nominations of four U.S.
Marshals: Michael David Credo for the Eastern District of Louisiana,
Esteban Soto III for the District of Puerto Rico, John Roberts Hackman
for the Eastern District of Virginia, and Robert Gideon Howard, Jr. for
the Eastern District of Arkansas.
We also reported the nominations of Julie L. Myers
to be Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security, Dabney Langhorne
Friedrich to be a member of the U.S. Sentencing Commission, and Beryl A.
Howell to be a member of the U.S. Sentencing Commission.
Just this week, with
only a few legislative days left to us before the Christmas
holidays and the end of this session, our
Committee held two hearings for executive nominations.
Our track record shows that the Judiciary Committee
has been working hard to make progress. Of course, when the White House
fails to timely send us nominations to fill vacancies, it makes it that
much harder.
The White House has made an abysmal effort to send
nominees to the Senate to replace the fired U.S. Attorneys and to fill
vacancies in those districts and many others. There are now 19
districts with acting or interim U.S. Attorneys instead of
Senate-confirmed U.S. Attorneys. That is nearly a quarter of all
districts. Yet the White House has nominated only three people for
these 19 spots. Of course, some of these could have been filled a year
ago had the White House worked with the Senate.
I have urged the President to fill the remaining
executive vacancies with nominees who will restore the independence of
federal law enforcement. Last month, the
White House announced with great fanfare its intent to make nominations
for key positions at the Department of Justice. It was only weeks later
that several of these nominations were sent to the Senate. The
delays in sending U.S. Attorney nominees and
others to the Senate follow the many months of delay where the White
House failed to send nominees to fill vacancies that have been open
since the summer, or before.
In the course of the Committee’s investigation into
the unprecedented mass firing of U.S. Attorneys by the President who
appointed them, we uncovered an effort by officials at the White House
and the Justice Department to exploit an obscure provision enacted
during the Patriot Act reauthorization to do an end-run around the
Senate’s constitutional duty to confirm U.S. Attorneys. The result was
the firing of well-performing U.S. Attorneys for not bending to the
political will of political operatives at the White House.
I have repeatedly emphasized that when it comes to
the Justice Department and to the U.S. Attorneys in our home states,
Senators have a say and a stake in ensuring fairness and independence in
order to insulate the federal law enforcement function from untoward
political influence. That is why the law and the practice has always
been that these appointments require Senate confirmation. The advice
and consent check on the appointment power for U.S. Attorneys is a
critical function of the Senate.
I had hoped when the Senate voted overwhelmingly to
close the loophole created by the Patriot Act when we passed S.214, the
“Preserving United States Attorneys Independence Act of 2007,” by a vote
of 97-0, it would send a clear message to the Administration to make
nominations that could receive Senate support and begin to restore an
important check on the partisan influence in law enforcement.
Yet, even as we closed one loophole, the
Administration has been exploiting others to continue to avoid coming to
the Senate. Under the guidance of an erroneous opinion of the Justice
Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, the Administration has been
employing the Vacancies Act authority to use acting U.S. Attorneys and
the power to appoint interim U.S. Attorneys sequentially. They have
used this misguided approach to put somebody in place for 330 days
without the advice and consent of the Senate. This approach runs afoul
of congressional intent and the law.
By not providing us with 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. Those nominations will now
necessarily carry over into the next session. That is unfortunate and
was unnecessary.
We will continue to make progress when we can, and
I will urge the White House to work with the Senate to fill these
vacancies.
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