So far, Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee have hired four lawyers to work on the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court, reports the BLT.
Of the four, three have done work for the Department of Justice.
The Republicans’ chief counsel for the Sotomayor nomination Elisebeth Cook is a former Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Policy who had moved on to become an associate at D.C.’s Cooper & Kirk. The three lawyers working with her will be Ryan Nelson, Seth Wood, and Ashok Pinto.
Nelson is a former Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Environment and Natural Resources Division, he also served as deputy general counsel at the Office of Management and Budget during the Bush administration. Wood is a former counsel in the Office of Legal Policy. The only staffer hired without a DOJ connection is Pinto, who was deputy associate counsel in the Bush White House.
UPDATE: Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) will be advised by George Washington University Law Professor Orin Kerr on the Sotomayor nomination. Kerr has worked previously as a special assistant U.S. attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia and has spent time working for the Justice Department’s Criminal Division. You can read Kerr’s initial thoughts on the Sotomayor nomination here.
