The Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday is slated to vote on two Justice Department nominees, the panel announced Monday.
The committee will consider Virginia Seitz for the Office of Legal Counsel and Denise O’Donnell for the Bureau of Justice Assistance. The two received few questions from senators last month during a confirmation hearing that focused on Solicitor General nominee Donald Verrilli.
Virginia Seitz (photo by Andrew Ramonas/Main Justice)
If confirmed, Seitz would be the first Assistant Attorney General backed by the Senate to head the OLC since 2004, when Jack Goldsmith resigned after he butted heads 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 head the office.
Seitz, who was nominated Jan. 5, is President Barack Obama’s second nominee for the post. The first Obama nominee for the job, Dawn Johnsen, withdrew in April 2010 after more than a year of Republican criticism about her pro abortion-rights views and aversion to the Bush administration’s national security policies.
The OLC provides 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 techniques against terrorism suspects, methods critics called torture.
Denise O'Donnell (photo by Andrew Ramonas/Main Justice)
O’Donnell has been nominated twice for Bureau of Justice Assistance Director. She was first nominated on Dec. 13 and never came before the Senate Judiciary Committee before the Senate adjourned sine die on Dec. 22. She was renominated Jan. 5.
She would replace acting Director James H. Burch II, who has led the bureau since Domingo S. Herraiz resigned in 2009.
The Bureau of Justice Assistance provides local, state and tribal law enforcement with funds and support for their initiatives.
