WASHINGTON — Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham indicated he won’t move forward on replacing the chief federal prosecutor in New York without the consent of the state’s two senators, both Democrats.
Graham commented in a statement on Attorney General William Barr’s move late Friday to oust Geoffrey S. Berman, the U.S. Attorney in the Southern District of New York. The White House said President Donald Trump will nominate Jay Clayton, chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, to head the key office. But Berman has refused to step down in the meantime.
Clayton’s appointment would need Senate confirmation, first by the Judiciary panel that Graham heads.
The South Carolina senator referred to “blue slips,” a long-standing tradition of deference to home-state lawmakers involved in weighing a nomination. In this case, that’s Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand.
“As to processing U.S. Attorney nominations, it has always been the policy of the Judiciary Committee to receive blue slips from the home state senators before proceeding to the nomination,” Graham said. “As chairman, I have honored that policy and will continue to do so.”
If Schumer and Gillibrand simply withhold blue slips for Clayton it would effectively freeze the SEC chief’s nomination.
Blue slips are a matter of tradition, not part of the Judiciary Committee’s rules. Graham had previously nixed the “blue slip” deference to home-state senators for Circuit Court nominees but left it in place for other nominations.
Although most Republican lawmakers remained silent on Saturday, Democrats, led by Schumer, called for an investigation into the firing of Berman, whose office has conducted investigations into people close to Trump.
Schumer said late Friday that the attempt to oust Berman “reeks of potential corruption of the legal process.” On Saturday he called on Clayton to “withdraw his name from consideration, and save his own reputation from overnight ruin.”
“I am calling for the Department of Justice Inspector General and the Office of Professional Responsibility to immediately launch an investigation into the reasons behind the decision by the president and the attorney general to attempt to dismiss Mr. Berman,” Schumer said.
Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts said in a tweet that the move was “a naked abuse of power” and that Barr should resign and be impeached by Congress.
In the House, Representative Gerry Connolly of Virginia, a member of the Oversight Committee, said the Justice Department owes the Congress an explanation for this “constitutional crisis.”
Jerrold Nadler, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, which has oversight of the Justice Department and had a lead role in Trump’s impeachment, said on Twitter that he would invite Berman to testify at a hearing on June 24.
Nadler is scheduled to appear Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
———
©2020 Bloomberg News
Visit Bloomberg News at www.bloomberg.com
Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.