In holding over nearly 50 judicial nominees Tuesday, including two renominees for the Northern Indiana District Court, Democrats on the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee called for a return to the traditions of honoring blue slips and relying on the American Bar Association’s evaluations.
The Senate Judiciary Committee this week is set to take up the nomination of William Barr, President Donald Trump’s pick for attorney general. The committee’s Republican chairman, Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, said the panel will vote on Barr on Tuesday, though it’s likely Democrats will seek to postpone it.
Yielding to mounting pressure and growing disruption, President Donald Trump and congressional leaders on Friday reached a short-term deal to reopen the government for three weeks while negotiations continue over the president’s demands for money to build his long-promised wall at the U.S.-Mexico border.
The two nominees for the Northern Indiana District Court are among 51 judicial candidates the White House has renominated for the federal bench.
Thirty-one days into the partial government shutdown, Democrats and Republicans appeared no closer to ending the impasse than when it began, with President Donald Trump lashing out at his opponents after they dismissed a plan he’d billed as a compromise.
President Donald Trump’s nominee for attorney general asserted independence from the White House on Tuesday, saying he believed that Russia had tried to interfere in the 2016 presidential election, that the special counsel investigation shadowing Trump is not a witch hunt and that his predecessor was right to recuse himself from the probe.
Congress returns to Washington for its first full week of legislative business since control of the House reverted to Democrats, but lawmakers will be confronted with the same lingering question: When will the partial government shutdown end?
When William Barr was attorney general in the early 1990s, his rhetoric reflected his deep-seated personal beliefs and was typical talk at a time when family values and tough-on-crime stances defined the party. Now, as President Donald Trump’s nominee for attorney general, Barr is poised to return to the same job in a dramatically different Washington.
Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, the most visible Justice Department protector of special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation and a frequent target of President Donald Trump’s wrath, is expected to leave his position soon after Trump’s nominee for attorney general is confirmed.
Republicans and Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee are renewing their attempt to protect special counsel Robert Mueller’s job, sending a signal to President Donald Trump as he keeps up his criticism of Mueller’s Russia investigation.
With the start of the 116th Congress, Indiana’s two remaining federal judicial nominees have stalled and the vacancies in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Indiana continue. However, Indiana’s senior senator expressed confidence they will come back to Capitol Hill.
On their first day in the majority, House Democrats on Thursday night passed a plan to re-open the government without funding President Donald Trump’s promised border wall. The largely party-line votes came after Trump made a surprise appearance at the White House briefing room pledging to keep up the fight for his signature campaign promise.
The Supreme Court began its term with the tumultuous confirmation of Justice Brett Kavanaugh, followed by a studied avoidance of drama on the high court bench — especially anything that would divide the five conservatives and four liberals. But when they gather in private on Friday to consider new cases for arguments in April and into next term, the justices will confront a raft of high-profile appeals.
The partial government shutdown will almost certainly be handed off to a divided government to solve in the new year — the first big confrontation between President Donald Trump and newly empowered Democrats — as agreement eludes Washington in the waning days of the Republican monopoly on power.
Indiana lawyers who are members of Congress, senators or vice president no longer have to worry about meeting continuing legal education requirements under a rule adopted this week by the Indiana Supreme Court. The new rule also decreases CLE credits required for state lawmakers who are attorneys.
The Senate passed a sweeping criminal justice bill Tuesday that addresses concerns that the nation’s war on drugs had led to the imprisonment of too many Americans for nonviolent crimes without adequately preparing them for their return to society.
After President Donald Trump announced Kavanaugh’s nomination in July, the Judicial Crisis Network declared that it was prepared to spend as much as $10 million or more in a pro-Kavanaugh advertising campaign. It set up confirmkavanaugh.com, calling Kavanaugh “a person of impeccable character, extraordinary qualifications, independence, and fairness.”
Republican Sen. Jeff Flake said Wednesday that he won’t vote to confirm judicial nominees unless GOP leaders hold a vote on legislation to protect special counsel Robert Mueller from being fired.
Appearing before the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary Tuesday, Damon Leichty said he was a proud Hoosier who learned much from the federal judge he clerked for and has been nominated to replace – Northern Indiana District Court Senior Judge Robert Miller, Jr. Leichty is the last federal judicial nominee to a vacancy in an Indiana court to appear before the judiciary committee.
Acting Attorney General Matt Whitaker will consult with Justice Department ethics officials about “matters that may warrant recusal” amid pressure from Democrats to step aside from overseeing the special counsel’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.