Senate Republicans are in a tizzy because Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois put a hold on President Donald Trump’s nomination for the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Florida, and said he’s open to holding up Trump’s other U.S. attorney nominees.
“[B]ecause of then-Senator J.D. Vance holding U.S. Attorney nominations during the Biden Administration, there is now a new precedent for roll call votes on the Floor for confirming U.S. Attorney nominees,” Durbin explained in a May 22 statement announcing the first hold.
The response from Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, Republican of Iowa, was predictably over the top. He claimed that placing a blanket hold on all 93 U.S. attorney nominations—which, notably, has not happened yet—would “constitute an aggressive, unprecedented attack on the American criminal justice system.” Also, per Grassley, blanket holds are meant to “wholly obstruct the confirmation process” and “threaten to undermine the Senate’s advice and consent role.”
And what about the part where Vance did a blanket hold on U.S. attorney nominations first? Grassley’s answer is just to say that Vance’s actions didn’t set a precedent, because it was limited to a small number of then-President Joe Biden’s nominees. That may be true—but only because Vance didn’t take office until January 2023, meaning many of Biden’s nominees had already been through the confirmation process.
What Grassley can’t get around is that Vance explicitly stated at the time that he was placing a hold on all Biden Justice Department nominees, period: “I’ve announced today that I will be holding all Department of Justice nominees that Merrick Garland will use, if confirmed, not to enforce the law impartially, which is his duty, but clearly to harass his political opponents.”
Just in case Vance’s meaning wasn’t crystal clear, he went on to say, “I think that we have to grind this department to a halt until Merrick Garland promises to do his job and stop going after his political opponents.”
Guess that wasn’t an “aggressive, unprecedented attack on the American criminal justice system” in Grassley’s eyes—of course, because it was undertaken by a Republican.
And why was Vance trying to grind the Justice Department to a halt? Because they prosecuted Trump, of course. Vance announced that clearly during Trump’s arraignment so that everyone would understand these holds were purely for revenge. Vance later justified his hold by saying that Hunter Biden’s plea agreement was too lenient. Gotta hit all those GOP talking points, I guess.
Republicans also were fine with Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas stalling out dozens of Biden’s State Department nominees in 2021 because he was mad that Biden had lifted sanctions on Nord Stream 2, a Russian-owned gas pipeline. Here’s Ted pretending to be concerned when justifying this: “President Biden has insisted on giving a multibillion-dollar gift benefiting Russia, hurting America and hurting our national security interests.” And yet, back in 2019, Cruz backed Trump weakening sanctions against Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska.
It’s got to be hard to keep track of your political positions when you have no moral center and just attach yourself to the most powerful person in the room.
And of course, we can’t talk about blanket holds without mentioning Alabama Sen. Tommy Tuberville’s lengthy tantrum where he blocked all military promotions for nearly a year, leaving around 450 people in limbo, because he opposed a policy that let service members travel out of state, if necessary, to have an abortion. Tuberville’s stunt went on so long that even Republican leadership tried to get him to knock it off.
Republicans genuinely can’t conceive of a world where Democrats deploy the same tactics they do. Democrats are supposed to follow the rules, and the rules are whatever Republicans say they are.
But as Durbin put it in his statement about the hold: “As I’ve said time and time again—there cannot be one set of rules for Republicans and another set for Democrats.”
Enjoy having to have a full floor debate and roll-call vote for every one of Trump’s U.S. attorney nominees, Chuck. That’s just the way it goes.
Republished with permission from Daily Kos.
