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Senators bicker over Justice Dept. nominations

From Terry Frieden
CNN Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Abandoning their usual courtesies, Republican and Democratic leaders of the Senate Judiciary Committee openly quarreled Wednesday over the pace of approving Justice Department appointments.

The delays have been largely the result of partisan bickering over the White House process of selecting federal judges and fallout over the bruising confirmation battle of Attorney General John Ashcroft.

Sitting side by side, but not looking at each other, Chairman Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, and Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vermont, accused one another of unfair tactics as Hatch attempted to speed the nominations and Leahy tried to slow them.

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Since the fight over Ashcroft, Democrats have prevented the nomination of any other Justice Department official from being voted upon.

Two people nominated to be assistant attorneys general, Michael Chertoff and Viet Dinh, sat quietly watching the tense wrangling over whether the panel would vote on nominees Thursday.

"I am not going to fail to go ahead with the markup [nominations], and if you don't want to show up that's your business," Hatch declared.

Leahy insisted on a closed session to discuss background checks, instead of moving ahead with a vote, but he did not want to say what concerned him.

"It's not fair to talk about reasons for an executive session," Leahy insisted.

Hatch interrupted. "And it's not fair to even raise executive sessions after we've had two private meetings."

Hatch finally scheduled an executive session for 9 a.m. Thursday, and a vote on the nominees at 10 a.m. -- with or without the Democrats.

A Democratic source told CNN that Democrats do not intend to walk out to prevent the required quorum, but the source would not predict the outcome of the votes.

Another committee source said the tentative list of nominees to be voted on Thursday includes four men who previously appeared before the panel. Among them is Ted Olson, nominated as solicitor general.

Olson, a prominent Republican who played a lead role in the post-election court fights in Florida, has rankled some Democrats.

Others in line to be voted on Thursday are Larry Thompson, nominated as deputy attorney general; Charles James, as assistant attorney general for antitrust; and Dan Bryant, as assistant attorney general for legislative affairs.

Dinh and Chertoff are unlikely to be voted on for another week according to committee sources.

Richard Durbin, D-Illinois, questioned Dinh Wednesday about his membership in the conservative Federalist Society and his likely role at the Justice Department in helping to select federal judges.

"The Federalist Society is going to be the filter for nominations to the Department of Justice as well as to judicial nominations," Durbin charged.

"I can tell you categorically they are not going to be the filter. I know who the filters are," Hatch responded. "They're in the White House and the Justice Department as they were in the Clinton administration."

Jeff Sessions, R-Alabama, summed up GOP frustrations.

"It's amazing we can't get these officials confirmed. They're tying it to an unrelated matter about judges to in fact hamper -- actually undermine -- the ability of the Department of Justice to function. It's really irresponsible," Sessions said.

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