confirmation hearings

This will hardly come as a surprise to anyone who watched the confirmation hearings of Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, in which her answers were careful to reveal as little as possible about her views on anything, but it’s still rare for a new justice to admit that her hearings were tightly scripted, with administration [...]

Addressing the annual conference of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit on Friday, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg made clear she was pleased with President Obama’s choice of Sonia Sotomayor to replace Justice David Souter, Tony Mauro at Legal Times reports. (Watch her on C-Span here.)
She also tossed in this tidbit [...]

Greg Sargent reports:
Uh oh. It looks like GOP Senators may make an issue out of the fact that they were kept out of the loop on today’s announcement of the date of the Sonia Sotomayor hearings. … We may be hearing GOP Senators complaining about this soon enough.
Was there a serious chance that Republicans wouldn’t [...]

Office of Legal Counsel Director-nominee Dawn Johnsen confirmed today that the OLC does not have the authority to give the president a green light to ignore congressional statutes, such as a prohibition on torture. “It was absolutely wrong for the president to direct that the torture statute not be complied with.”
Referring to former Bush administration [...]

If today’s confirmation hearing for Solicitor General-nominee Elena Kagan was a supposed “trial balloon” for the scrutiny of a possible Supreme Court appointment, expect smooth sailing.

Sometimes sorry seems to be the hardest word, but Treasury Secretary-nominee Timothy Geithner apologized profusely at his confirmation hearing today for underpaying $34,000 in taxes. And that seems to be enough to ensure he’ll get the job, the New York Times reports.

Today is Timothy Geithner’s turn in the spotlight, as his confirmation hearings to become treasury secretary begin. The New York Times asks economists and other experts for some questions lawmakers ought to shoot at Geithner. Some excerpts:
Ordinary taxpayers would like an answer to this question: Why have they been billed more than $45 billion to [...]

Shoring up Sen. Patrick Leahy’s (D-Vt.) claim that Eric Holder’s nomination for attorney general has “bipartisan support,” former Sen. John Warner (R-Va.) is speaking on behalf of Holder’s confirmation.
Anticipating the minority’s objections, Warner stressed Holder’s learned from past “misjudgments” and discussed his ample experience, mentioning his appointment by former President Ronald Reagan as a district [...]

Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Penn.) and Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), the minority and majority leaders in the Senate Judiciary Committee, have opened the hearings for the confirmation of Eric Holder to attorney general, setting what is an expected tone for the day.
Their opening statements are pretty predictable so far: Leahy has harped on the mess that [...]

The confirmation hearings for Transportation Secretary-designate Ray LaHood, set to begin today, may have gotten a bit more complicated this morning. The Washington Post reports that as an Illinois GOP congressman, LaHood was a big fan of earmarks — often to the benefit of some of his largest campaign contributors. LaHood retired from the House [...]