Republican Senator Blocks Judicial Nominations Because … Trump?
GOP Senator J.D. Vance is blocking multiple judicial nominations, in an apparent retaliation for the federal indictments of Donald Trump.
According to Vance, the Justice Department’s pursuit of, well, justice is enough to constitute a “banana republic.”
“I object to this because we are living in a banana republic where the president is using his Department of Justice to go after his chief political rival, the person he will appear on the ballot with, in about a year,” Vance said on Wednesday.
At stake are the nominations of Rebecca Lutzko to the Northern District of Vance’s home state of Ohio and April Perry to the Northern District of Illinois—both of whom Vance thinks are worthy sacrifices for an opportunity to kowtow to Trump.
“If the Department of Justice will use these nominations for law instead of politics, I am happy to end this whole policy,” Vance added.
Trump is currently facing 91 felony charges in four criminal trials. On the federal level, he is facing two indictments for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results and allegedly stealing a trove of classified documents from the White House.
It’s not clear what exactly Vance thinks he will achieve in these cases by blocking unrelated nominations for U.S. attorneys.