Obama Picks New Nominee For Legal Counsel's Office
Carrie JohnsonAll Things Considered, NPR
The White House has nominated Washington lawyer Virginia Seitz on Wednesday to lead the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel. If she is confirmed, Seitz will run a unit that became famous for approving waterboarding and other harsh interrogation methods in the Bush years.
Seitz's supporters are hoping that her nomination bucks the office's recent history, which has been filled with controversy and disappointment. In all, it's been seven years since the office had a leader confirmed by the Senate, something that veterans like Walter Dellinger shake their heads at.
And it is striking — indeed, almost shocking — that since I left as the confirmed head of OLC 14 years ago, for fewer than three of those 14 years has there been a confirmed person [as] head of the Office of Legal Counsel.
- Walter Dellinger
"OLC, as we've all learned from the torture memos, is a critically important office," Dellinger said. "And it is striking — indeed, almost shocking — that since I left as the confirmed head of OLC 14 years ago, for fewer than three of those 14 years has there been a confirmed person [as] head of the Office of Legal Counsel."
Indiana law professor Dawn Johnsen was the Obama administration's first nominee for the job. But Johnsen stepped aside in April after months of waiting in vain for the Senate to vote on her nomination. Republicans thought she was too liberal on national security issues, and they used articles she wrote during the Bush years to prove it.
Now, the White House is trying again with the 54-year-old Seitz, a former Rhodes scholar and a onetime Supreme Court clerk for Justice William Brennan. Her father, a chancellor in Delaware, authored a legal opinion that analysts say helped pave the way for the Brown v. Board of Education ruling.
Read more: http://www.npr.org/2011/01/05/132681380/obama-picks-new-nominee-for-legal-counsels-office
