Two nominees being questioned:
Rod Rosenstein, Deputy Attorney General Nominee
Rachael Brand, Associate Attorney General Nominee
As near as I can tell, Rod Rosenstein is a career lawyer who is completely competent and trustworthy. (Rachael Brand seemed more obviously conservative, but nothing terrible there.)
Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX, Majority Whip) questioned how the Democrats were being so mean to prior nominees, asking them uncomfortable questions, and opposing their nomination if they didn’t like things. Poor baby!
It’s surreal listening to Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) spend the first few minutes of his time to complain about how hearings have become so political, while going through a laundry list of his political gripes with prior administrations. All I can hope is he’s getting sound bites out there so he can clip out the single sentences he likes later.
Hatch asks so strongly about the Rapid DNA Act he sponsored, I wonder there’s a corporate sponsor behind him.
And Hatch is back to bitching about “when the previous presidents attempted to appoint some officials without Senate consent.” (Obama used recess appointments when the Senate failed to move on a host of his nominees.) Hatch remains frosted, and asks Brand if she felt this was unconstitutional. She agrees it was, and Hatch almost glows.
Lots more politics. Have I mentioned how much I hate politics?
Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) was a surprise. He was asking sharp, grown-up questions. He was still leading back to specific political talking points, but he did it from principles. I disagreed with where he was going (I’m still ridiculously liberal), but its the kind of honest disagreement I haven’t felt in a while.
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) asking if Rosenstein would enforce the White House on their rules of contact. Jeeze! It’s a White House rule! Rosenstein said they fend off inappropriate requests from lots of people, usually innocently. Whitehouse’s questions didn’t get better over time.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) just walked in and the chairman allowed him to ask questions immediately. What, such an important guy, he’s just too busy to stand with the other Senators? He asked about wiretaps and whether it was reasonable to investigate. Very prosecutorial, trying to lay traps for the nominees. Now he’s trying to work up outrage about another President unilaterally ordering an event that never happened (President Obama’s fake wiretap). Watching Rosenstein try to politely answer Graham’s red-meat baiting was painful.
And Graham is really Trump’s bitch on the wiretap stupidity, but it eventually ended. Oddly. Graham just ended after one of Rosenstein’s answers, and he stopped talking. The room went uncomfortably quiet until they realized that he was done.
Dang. Rude? Hard to believe he’s southern. People started talking as Graham left the room, moving on uneasily.
This is wild! I shifted to the Senate floor, and there was Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), talking. Damn, he’s fast on his feet! He must have left the nomination hearing after his bit ended and trotted right over. Cornyn started with the usual red-meat attacks on Obamacare, most of which have been widely discredited.
But then he started trashing the Democrats for being mean to the Trump nominees, mischaracterizing the questions and answers (which are still going on). Cornyn looks a little pink as he spins new lies, claiming the (bad!) Democrats threatened to block Rosenstein’s nomination unless he promised to do this or that investigation.
I hope my colleagues in this chamber don’t Stonewall [Rosenstien’s] nomination, or use it as a platform to disparage Attorney General Sessions.
Cornyn then swore that we don’t need no damn commission looking into this Russian stuff.
Back to the Rosenstein hearing. So sure, there was a lot of politics, but overall, the Democrats sounded more involved. They reached out to both nominees, trying to draw them into giving more values-based answers. The Republicans were focused on eliciting specific, correct responses. Litmus tests. Not that the Democrats weren’t fishing for specific promises sometimes, but not as much, and the Democrats did it more openly.
