Reid: We’ll defeat Olson

Senate Republicans on Wednesday fired a warning shot at Democrats on the White House’s still-unnamed attorney general pick as Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) declared that front-runner Ted Olson would not be confirmed.

{mosads}The early sparring over the successor to Alberto Gonzales, who cedes power at the Justice Department on Friday, foreshadows a brutal confirmation battle to come. Minutes after Reid declared former solicitor general Olson was too partisan for the job, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) fired a salvo at Democrats who would delay Gonzales’s replacement.

“If they were serious when they cried out for new leadership at the Justice Department, they will follow Senate precedent,” McConnell said on the floor. “They will carefully weigh the qualifications of the nominee and vote in a timely fashion.”

Capitol Hill is watching the White House closely for signs of a nomination that remains uncertain nearly three weeks after Gonzales resigned, facing bipartisan pressure and multiple investigations. Democrats view the slowdown in choosing an attorney general, however, as strengthening their hand during the drawn-out Senate confirmation that both parties expect.
“Once they name this person, they’re going to have a harder time getting confirmation quickly,” one Senate Democratic aide said. Of GOP arguments that Gonzales’s critics should not block his replacement, the aide added: “That’s apples and oranges.”

Even Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) — still considered a dark-horse nominee — agreed that Democrats are unlikely to fast-track a confirmation because they had called for Gonzales’s quick ouster. The White House “doesn’t understand these people up here,” Hatch said.

Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) summed up his party’s sentiment on the floor, telling McConnell, “It’s a little difficult to accuse us of delaying a nomination that’s not yet been made … The way it works is, the president actually has to nominate somebody.”

Reid’s dismissal of Olson came amid signals from senior Democrats that the conservative favorite, who represented President Bush before the Supreme Court in the 2000 Florida recount case, would face broad opposition.

“He’s had a very political background at a time when you want [an attorney general] who puts the rule of law first,” Sen. Charles Schumer (N.Y.), number three in the Democratic caucus, said.

Sen. Ben Nelson (Neb.) is the only sitting Democrat to have backed Olson in his razor-thin 2001 confirmation as solicitor general. Schumer pointed to the 47 Democrats then opposing Olson — 11 more than Gonzales received for his confirmation to lead Justice — as emblematic of the lack of consensus.

Meanwhile, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy pointed to the panel’s investigation of controversial testimony in which Olson denied knowledge of the Arkansas Project, a conservative effort to uncover possible misdeeds by then-President Clinton and his wife, now-Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.).

“There was a feeling by many that some of the answers he gave in his last confirmation, answers under oath, were not accurate,” Leahy said.

In addition to the 2001 Judiciary probe, an independent counsel investigated Olson in 1986 after he spearheaded an executive privilege defense by the Reagan administration that has echoed in this year’s clash over multiple Democratic subpoenas being challenged by Bush.

Yet Olson has several well-placed Democratic defenders, as Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) noted on Wednesday. Lanny Davis, former Clinton special counsel and a contributor to The Hill’s Pundits Blog , has thrown his support behind Olson.

“His reputation is as a principled lawyer,” Sessions said. While Judiciary is famous for partisan scuffling, he added, “If this is an honest nominee who can state his views in a principled way, they tend to confirm him. I mean, we got [Supreme Court Justice John] Roberts and others.”

Olson is not the only name on the shortlist, which includes federal judge Michael Mukasey and former deputy attorney generals George Terwilliger and Larry Thompson. But regardless of the nominee, Leahy has vowed not to hold a confirmation hearing until the White House ceases withholding information subpoenaed by Democrats on U.S. attorneys and warrantless surveillance.

“We can’t have a hearing until we get some of the information we subpoenaed,” Leahy reiterated on Wednesday.
Republicans are ready for a fight over those dueling investigations, betting that Democrats will use the attorney general nominee as leverage regardless of who gets the nod.

“They could nominate Pat Leahy and Democrats would fight it,” one Senate GOP aide said. “They said, we need to have a new attorney general right now, it’s too important to wait. We’ll find out if they meant that or were just using it as cover to bash Gonzales.”

Hatch gave his own advice to Democrats ready to press for White House cooperation by slowing the confirmation of a new attorney general.

“Democrats have to be very careful,” Hatch said. “Especially at this time, with a year and three months to go [in the administration].”

White House spokesman Tony Snow told reporters on Wednesday that he could offer no timeframe for a nomination announcement.