Government

J.D. Vance Protests Politicization Of The DOJ By... Politicizing The DOJ

He's the one using the Justice Department as a political tool.

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Sen. J.D. Vance

(Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)

Who says irony is dead? J.D. Vance, the freshman senator and Yale Law grad, is no stranger to pandering to his base — after all, he’s played “Mad Libs for bigots” on television, and he’s back at it. Earlier this week, Vance blocked the nominations of four U.S. attorneys. Why’d he do that? Because he wants to signal to the far right he’s on Team Trump, so he has to make a show of protesting over the federal indictment(s) the former president faces, or in right-wing double speak, the “politicization” of the Department of Justice.

The nominees for U.S. attorneys Mississippi, California, Illinois, and Ohio were brought to the Senate floor for unanimous consent, since the choices were considered non-controversial. Enter Vance’s attention-getting ploy. And don’t worry, Vance even admits he has no objections to the qualifications of the nominees it is all about the special counsel, Jack Smith.

“My real fear here, I don’t want to be here, I don’t want to be objecting to these nominees, but what I like much less is the fact that these nominees will be used by the attorney general for politics over justice,” Vance said.

Indeed, as one of the nominees was from Vance’s home state of Ohio, he’d already informed the Judiciary Committee he supported that nomination. But once Vance could use the nomination for his own political goals, he changed his tune.

Senate majority whip Dick Durbin was happy to point out the problems with the ploy, as reported by Law360:

Durbin said a single senator’s ability to block top positions at the Justice Department threatens public safety and puts “many Americans and their families, including the most-vulnerable among us, at greater risk.” Vance was objecting with “no principal basis” because “he does not like it that one of his political allies is being held accountable for his actions,” Durbin said.

“This is a protest, a political protest, for an action taken by a special counsel, but he’s doing it at the expense of families all across America,” Durbin said.

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Vance is on record saying he’ll block all DOJ nominations, because of the Trump indictments. He blames those on Joe Biden — never mind the independence of the special counsel — and not on the (allegedly) criminal, or at least criminal adjacent, actions of the former president.

“The DOJ is and always has been defined by its most consequential investigations and prosecutions,” Vance said. “This DOJ is thus defined by its selective prosecution of the leader of the opposition, the man running against Joe Biden to become president of the United States. Of course, I’m speaking of Donald Trump.”

Durbin has a ready answer for that:

Durbin fired back Wednesday, saying Biden had continually “demonstrated his respect for the Justice Department’s independence” and never interfered in its investigations. It was conduct in stark comparison to that of Trump, who Durbin said during his time in office used the Justice Department “as his personal law firm.”

Not that it gets those nominees into the jobs…

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Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, host of The Jabot podcast, and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter @Kathryn1 or Mastodon @[email protected].

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