rssRepublicans Press Obama to Withdraw Johnsen Nomination
Tuesday, April 21, 2009 at 5:01 pm
- 7 Comments
Declaring that Dawn Johnsen “is so against an unborn child’s right-to-live that she has labeled mothers-to-be ‘fetal containers’,” Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) sent a letter to President Obama today urging him to withdraw her nomination to head the Office of Legal Counsel.
“Nominating Dawn Johnsen to head the Office of Legal Counsel is an insult to pro-life Americans who are willing to work with President Obama to find common ground,” King wrote. “Her personal pro-abortion agenda, previous disparaging comments about pro-life Americans and past criticism of Congress’ ban on partial-birth abortion are evidence that she is not interested in finding common ground with those who oppose her narrow philosophy,” said King in a statement released today.
Johnsen’s legal arguments defending the right to an abortion come from cases she handled as a lawyer at the National Abortion Rights Action League, or NARAL, a position she left in 1993.
King’s statements echo the charges of Senator Arlen Specter and other Republicans at Johnsen’s confirmation hearing, where she was attacked for a statement she made in a 20-year-old footnote to a brief she wrote to the Supreme Court in an abortion case. That footnote was also cited by Andrew McCarthy in the National Review.
The Office of Legal Counsel provides legal advice to the president and has no particular authority over abortion policy, which is largely left to the states.
Nevertheless, King and 62 other representatives last month wrote to President Obama urging him to withdraw her nomination on the same grounds.
The pressure to kill the Johnsen nomination may become even stronger now that President Obama has released more OLC memos detailing the CIA’s abusive interrogation tactics last week.
Scott Horton reported earlier in The Daily Beast that Republicans were threatening to derail the confirmations of Johnsen and Harold Hongju Koh, nominated as counsel to the State Department, if President Obama released the controversial memos.
7 Comments
Comment posted April 21, 2009 @ 2:22 pm
Tell them no and use the fact that they wouldn't listen to us on the Iraq war that has aborted many man Iraqi children.
Comment posted April 21, 2009 @ 5:17 pm
I think it's time to call their bluff. first, let the gop demonstrate it's commitment to obstructionism (easy), then start going around them legislatively. They're only playing to their base and most everyone else can see it. Give them enough rope (see Rush although King is coming on strong) and they will make themselves irrelevant.
Comment posted April 21, 2009 @ 8:12 pm
The American people deserve an accurate account of what went on in our name – I'm more interested in the truth than retribution, but there shouldn't be any nonsense about restricted questions, being off record only … only the unvarnished truth of the actions and policies actually used, and who was involved and in what ways
Comment posted April 21, 2009 @ 9:22 pm
Tell them no and use the fact that they wouldn't listen to us on the Iraq war that has aborted many man Iraqi children.
Comment posted April 22, 2009 @ 12:17 am
I think it's time to call their bluff. first, let the gop demonstrate it's commitment to obstructionism (easy), then start going around them legislatively. They're only playing to their base and most everyone else can see it. Give them enough rope (see Rush although King is coming on strong) and they will make themselves irrelevant.
Comment posted April 22, 2009 @ 3:12 am
The American people deserve an accurate account of what went on in our name – I'm more interested in the truth than retribution, but there shouldn't be any nonsense about restricted questions, being off record only … only the unvarnished truth of the actions and policies actually used, and who was involved and in what ways
Pingback posted June 26, 2009 @ 6:03 pm
[...] situation may be partly due to the lack of leadership in the OLC: Republicans have stalled the confirmation of Dawn Johnsen, President Obama’s nominee to head the office, for months now. That may be giving outsiders more [...]
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