Las Vegas lawyers with ties to Washington told The Las Vegas Sun that they think Daniel Bogden, Sen. Harry Reid’s pick for Nevada U.S. Attorney, has hit a hitch during the vetting process. Read The Sun article from today here.
Daniel Bogden (Getty)
Reid, the Senate Majority Leader from Nevada,
Harry Reid (Gov)
recommended in March that President Obama nominate Bogden as U.S. Attorney. Bogden had served as the Nevada U.S. Attorney from 2001 until 2006, when he was fired during the U.S. Attorney purge.
“It’s obvious to everybody that something is afoot,” an unnamed federal prosecutor told The Sun. “Harry Reid is the most powerful person in Congress, and yet the name of his guy isn’t moving forward.”
Reid spokesperson Jon Summers told The Sun that the Senate Majority Leader continued to stand behind his recommendation, which is also supported by embattled Nevada Republican Sen. John Ensign.
John Ensign (Gov)
Ensign, who recommended Bogden to be U.S. Attorney in 2001, is in the middle of a growing scandal involving his former mistress. The Nevada Republican admitted this June to an extramarital affair with Cindy Hampton, a former campaign staffer. He said this month his parents gave Hampton and her family $100,000 for the trouble she is going through. Liberal watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington urged Attorney General Eric Holder to probe the matter.
“It really doesn’t help Bogden’s chances at all to be so close to Ensign at this time when there’s some serious conversation about whether the circumstances surrounding Ensign’s extramarital affair may be investigated,” University of Nevada-Las Vegas Boyd School of Law professor Jeff Stempel told The Sun.
A federal prosecutor told the newspaper that the uncertainty surrounding Bogden’s possible nomination has damaged morale in the U.S Attorney’s office that is currently led by U.S. Attorney Greg Brower, a Bush-holdover.
“The office appears to be in a state of confusion and flux with no real sense of leadership in place,” the federal prosecutor told The Sun.
The Sun said the unnamed lawyers it interviewed did not support the nomination of Bogden.
