Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, has threatened to block the swift confirmation of federal prosecutors, Politico reported.
Durbin announced he would put a hold on Jason Reding Quiñones’ nomination for U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Florida, slowing his confirmation. The Trump administration has yet to confirm a nominee for U.S. attorney in the Senate, Politico said.
The Illinois senator was doing the same thing Vice President JD Vance did when he represented Ohio in the Senate. Vance put a hold on President Joe Biden’s U.S. attorney nominees to protest the Justice Department’s indictment of now-President Donald Trump.
There is “a new precedent for roll call votes on the Floor for confirming U.S. Attorney nominees,” Durbin said in a statement. “As I’ve said time and time again — there cannot be one set of rules for Republicans and another set for Democrats.”
Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, chair of the Judiciary Committee, dismissed Durbin, saying he was “playing politics.”
“Placing a blanket hold on all U.S. Attorney nominees before the Trump administration has filled even a single one of the 93 Attorneys’ Offices would constitute an aggressive, unprecedented attack on the American criminal justice system,” Grassley said in a statement. “Holds should be used selectively. Blanket holds intended to wholly obstruct the confirmation process are misguided and threaten to undermine the Senate’s advice and consent role.”
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