The full Senate on Tuesday is set to consider three nominees for top Justice Department positions, including two posts long held by temporary appointees.
The chamber is scheduled to hold final votes on the nominations of James Cole for Deputy Attorney General, a job without a Senate-confirmed appointee since February 2010, and Virginia Seitz for Office of Legal Counsel Assistant Attorney General, a post held by temporary appointees since 2004. The Senate also will hold a final vote on the nomination of Lisa Monaco for National Security Division Assistant Attorney General, a position that last had a Senate-confirmed leader in March.
The decision to hold the votes came after Senate leaders last week reached an agreement that allowed the nominees to come to the Senate floor and be voted upon.
Senate leaders made the deal after hammering out various matters with the Justice Department, including concerns Sen. Charles Grassley, the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, raised about his ability to effectively conduct his probe into Operation Fast and Furious, a controversial Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives gun smuggling program.
The Republican senator had expressed frustration that he didn’t get the documents and records House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) received from the DOJ about the program which allowed guns to fall into the hands of Mexican drug cartels in an effort to track them. The DOJ had told Grassley that it would not provide the senator with access to documents that were made available to the House Oversight Committee because federal agencies typically only respond to committee chairmen and Grassely isn’t one.
But Attorney General Eric Holder now has said the Department will give Grassely the same access to information, witnesses and documents that is provided to Issa and the DOJ Inspector General, which also is investigating the program. In return, Republican senators lifted holds on the nominees.
Democrats have fought particularly hard for a final vote on Cole, whom President Barack Obama first nominated for the No. 2 post at the DOJ in May 2010.
In December, Democrats pushed for a vote on Cole before the Senate adjourned sine die. But Republican opposition forced the chamber to return his nomination to the White House.
The president in January installed him through a recess appointment that ends when the current congressional session concludes later this year. Obama also renominated him in January, and the Senate Judiciary Committee endorsed him along a party-line vote in March.
In May, the Senate held an unsuccessful cloture vote on Cole’s nomination, preventing an up-or-down vote on him at the time.
Republicans have expressed concerns about a 2002 article he authored supporting civilian trials for terrorism suspects and his time as an independent monitor for insurance giant AIG, which the Federal Reserve bailed out during the 2008 financial industry crisis.
Cole also was the House ethics committee special counsel who investigated then-Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) in the 1990s for the mishandling of tax-exempt organizations for political purposes. The House gave Gingrich a rare formal reprimand and ordered him to pay a $300,000 penalty.
The last nominated, Senate-confirmed Deputy Attorney General was David Ogden, who resigned in February 2010. Gary Grindler served as acting Deputy Attorney General after Ogden’s resignation. Grindler is now the Chief of Staff to Attorney General Eric Holder.
Cole, a former DOJ Criminal Division official, was a partner at the law firm of Bryan Cave LLP in D.C. prior to his recess appointment.
As for Seitz and Monaco, they have moved through the Senate with relative ease. The Senate Judiciary Committee approved their nominations by unanimous consent in May.
Seitz, whom Obama nominated January, would be the first Assistant Attorney General endorsed by the Senate to lead the OLC since 2004, when Jack Goldsmith resigned after disagreeing with George W. Bush administration officials about the administration’s aggressive post-Sept. 11 national security policies. Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Caroline Krass currently heads the office.
She is Obama’s second nominee for the post. His first nominee, Dawn Johnsen, withdrew in April 2010 after more than a year of Republican criticism about her opposition to the Bush administration’s national security policies and her pro abortion-rights views.
The OLC gives legal advice to the president and other administration officials on various issues, including national security matters. The office was in the middle of the bitter dispute over the use of harsh interrogation methods against terrorism suspects, methods critics called torture.
Seitz, like Johnsen, is a member of the American Constitution Society, a left-leaning legal group. She also clerked for Justice William Brennan, who was a member of the Supreme Court’s liberal wing. Seitz is married to acting Deputy Solicitor General Roy McLeese.
She has been a partner at the law firm of Sidley Austin LLP since 1998.
Monaco, whom Obama tapped in March, has been the Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General under Cole since January. She previously held several posts within the DOJ since 1998, including a stint as a top adviser to FBI Director Robert Mueller.
Monaco would succeed David Kris, who resigned as the National Security Division Assistant Attorney General in March to join the private sector. Todd Hinnen is currently heading the division on an acting basis.
She would be the fourth permanent National Security Division Assistant Attorney General if confirmed by the Senate. The National Security Division was created in 2006.
The Tax Division hasn’t had a presidentially appointed AAG since late 2008. There isn’t even a pending nominee. But then, the U.S. has plenty of tax revenue coming in, so who’s worried?