Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein this week asked all 93 U.S. attorneys to provide up to three prosecutors each from their offices to help review documents needed for Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation.
The New York Times reported Wednesday on the emailed request, which carried the subject line “Personal Message to U.S. attorneys from the Deputy AG,” to the U.S. attorneys.
The Times reported that Rosenstein wrote he “expected to need the equivalent of 100 full-time lawyers to work on Judge Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearing,” in the paper’s words.
The judge’s long paper trail — on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, as an appointee in the George W. Bush White House and as an associate counsel on the Ken Starr probe — promise to make his confirmation process document-filled and cumbersome.
“The scope of the production of executive branch documents we’ve been asked for is many, many times as large” as that of other recent nominees to the Court, Justice Department spokesperson Sarah Isgur Flores told the Times.
The paper noted that while Justice Department lawyers have helped with previous Supreme Court nominations, those lawyers usually come from the Department’s Washington, D.C. headquarters, not the law enforcement-focused U.S. attorneys’ offices.
This should be a looooong process.
Doubt the Republicans will agree.
93 * 3 = 279
279 - 100 = 179.
For what are the other 179 attorney’s needed?
ETA: As @cervantes noted they aren’t all FTE (full time equivalents). So 279 attorneys working part-time equals 100 FTE. Thanks!
The 279 will not be working full-time on this project.
But, it would be a longer process without 100 extra attorneys. Not sure this is a good sign.
Well, if my earlier prediction about a nominee had born fruit, the process would have been even longer. Imagine having to watch and transcribe all those hours of Judge Judy!