http://www.politico.com/story/2014/10/eric-holder-replacement-111522.html?hp=t1_3
Speculation narrows on Eric Holder replacement
By: Edward-Isaac Dovere and Josh Gerstein
October 1, 2014 03:36 PM EDT
Less than a week since Attorney General Eric Holder’s resignation was announced, internal speculation at the White House and Justice Department around his replacement has already narrowed to three names: former White House counsel Kathy Ruemmler, Labor Secretary Tom Perez and Solicitor General Donald Verrilli.
The decision will signify what President Barack Obama wants his attorney general to prioritize — and what he wants his own legal legacy to be — for the remainder of the administration. In the midst of the president stepping up America’s military approach to terrorism, national security considerations will be central to the nomination.
But the next attorney general will also be trusted with key parts of Obama’s domestic agenda: defending potential executive actions on immigration, trying to restore the Voting Rights Act and surmounting the legal hurdles to implementing Obamacare.
Ruemmler is seen by officials as one who’d lead administration efforts to complete what President Barack Obama and Holder have long identified as top items of unfinished business, from sentencing reform to closing Guantánamo Bay. She’s already had a hand in these matters for years from her White House perch and might be better able to cut deals on Capitol Hill than Perez, who didn’t pick up a single Republican vote in the Senate when he was confirmed to the Cabinet last year.
Choosing Perez would be a message the president is putting even more emphasis on the civil rights enforcement that both Obama and Holder have prioritized. Perez is also hands down the most dynamic figure of the three and could be useful to an administration seeking to rev up its political base.
Verrilli would deliver instant gravitas and steady leadership, offering a solid, if somewhat unexciting, hand at the helm at DOJ for Obama’s final two years in office.
Other possibilities haven’t been ruled out entirely, including Jenny Durkan, who recently left her post as a U.S. attorney in Washington State and would be the first openly LGBT member of the Cabinet, and Preet Bharara, the U.S. attorney in New York who’s established himself as a leader on prosecuting financial crimes and political corruption.
The speed that the White House would need to get Holder’s replacement confirmed in a lame-duck session — which remains the current expectation of Obama aides — may also prove a major factor. Typically, hearings take place at least a month after a nomination, and there tends to be at least another three weeks before a committee vote.
Here’s POLITICO’s rundown on the lawyers who’ve emerged as the top three:
Ruemmler
No doubt, Kathy Ruemmler’s strong suit coming in would be the fact she was central to Obama’s national security decisions during her three years in the White House. A mostly behind-the-scenes player at the White House, Ruemmler clocked performances during several speeches while serving as counsel and appearances on the Sunday shows, which made a good impression in the West Wing.
“The national security piece of the job over the last 13 years has become a huge and significant part of the job. Clearly, that’s part of the potential strength Kathy brings to this,” said a former White House official who requested anonymity.
“What staff can’t do is take your place at that table in the Situation Room,” one former Justice Department official said. “You need to have thought through and be able to represent all the issues about law-of-war detention, about putting someone on a ship versus keeping them in a foreign country versus sending them to Guantánamo. It’s not an absolute prerequisite, but I would think it would be a huge advantage to have that kind of expertise.”
An AG without that familiarity could prompt concern among some DOJ lawyers about ceding turf to other parts of the government, the ex-official added.
If Obama does tap Ruemmler, expect to hear a lot from Republicans about Alberto Gonzales and how when President George W. Bush picked his White House counsel for attorney general, then-Sen. Obama voted against the nominee on the grounds that he wasn’t independent enough of the president.
“Although [Gonzales] seemed to be a capable attorney, he seemed to conceive his role as being the president’s attorney instead of being the people’s attorney,” Obama complained to CNN’s Larry King in March 2005. “Part of the role of the attorney general is to say to the executive branch: ‘Here are the limits of your power. Here are the five things you can’t do.’ I don’t think Alberto Gonzales ever told the president that there was something he could not do.”
Ruemmler would likely counter that criticism by pointing to her prosecutorial experience as well as her time at DOJ — and to the fact that, unlike Gonzales, she did not come to the White House as a friend of the president.
Another potential trouble spot: Republicans could use her confirmation hearing to press for details on her advice to the president on handling high-profile issues, including such conservative shibboleths as Operation Fast and Furious and Benghazi.
“She was one of the president’s closest advisers during that period,” said Melanie Sloan of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. “The White House counsel is an easy target. [Republicans] are going to want to know what she was advising the president about and talking to the president about on Fast and Furious.”
Ruemmler’s résumé also includes being a top prosecutor on the Enron case, Sloan noted. “There have been concerns about Holder not taking financial crimes seriously enough. She would be somebody who, because of her work on Enron, might be able to suggest she would move in that direction.”
Ruemmler seems to have already secured tentative support from Senate Minority Whip John Cornyn (R-Texas). “I had at least a good working experience with her when she was White House Counsel on judicial nominations,” he told The Dallas Morning News editorial board on Monday when asked about potential Holder replacements.
But Ruemmler’s eagerness to jump back into government service is an open question. She declined to comment about her interest in or qualifications for the attorney general job. However, when she finally left the White House in June, it was after repeatedly extending her stay at Obama’s request. Several friends said she was eager to move on and was somewhat burned out.
“She only returned to private practice several months ago,” a person familiar with Ruemmler’s thinking said. “She’s very undecided about whether this is something she wants to pursue at the end of the day.”
Perez
Perez prosecuted domestic terrorism cases during his early years at DOJ under Ronald Reagan and even won a departmental award for that work. But if he’s the pick, the direction would seem to be pointed toward civil rights.
Of the four top accomplishments that Obama cited last week as he announced Holder’s departure, two — voting rights and LGBT rights — were items that Perez was directly involved with when he ran the civil rights division during the first term, and has continued to be, formally and informally, while at Labor over the past year and a half.
“Speaking from the civil rights perspective, Holder fulfilled all our ideas and thoughts of what a good attorney general should be about,” said Marc Morial, the CEO of the National Urban League, although not talking specifically about Perez. “We want an attorney general who’s going to continue that commitment.”
Over his time in office, Holder became known for being a public force, and forcefully pushing back on Republicans at a number of combative congressional hearings. The Democratic base is going to be looking for more of both.
“It’s not only managing a department — it’s the bully pulpit that goes along with it,” Morial said.
The conventional wisdom is that anyone who’s been confirmed before would be easier to get confirmed again. Perez has been confirmed twice, which would seem to be to his advantage — his Labor nomination ran into trouble, in part because it got sucked into a larger political fight over confirmations. While Perez did face sharp questions about his behind-the-scenes efforts to head off a Supreme Court ruling that could have undermined traditional civil rights cases, he’s already been vetted, and already been through the process, which could have an appeal for a White House looking to move quickly.
Already, though, Perez’s progressive background has Republicans rumbling — he hasn’t done much financial prosecution, but some business leaders and Wall Street types say they’re already concerned about what having him in charge would mean for them.
Perez has earned a reputation for being a force behind the podium, drawing on both trial lawyer and political experience. He could be a charismatic public face for the administration, particularly with liberal and minority audiences.
“Tom, more than the other two, would bring tremendous energy,” said a former Justice Department official. “Tom’s become an extraordinary public speaker. He’ll just blow you away.”
A Perez spokesperson declined comment on the speculation.
Verrilli
Verrilli doesn’t produce the same kind of electricity as Ruemmler or Perez, but is very widely respected at DOJ and had a direct relationship with Obama while serving as a top lawyer in the White House counsel’s office for a time during the president’s first term.
Obama is, of course, a constitutional lawyer himself, and the combination of that like-mindedness and his personal relationship with Verrilli have kept the solicitor general very much in the mix, though not nearly as much in the discussion as Ruemmler and Perez.
His nomination, as a white, male attorney, also would not carry as much symbolism as appointing a woman or a Latino — and would not signify anything as immediately clear about DOJ direction. A nod for Verrilli would likely be the most politically safe option and one most in line with the goal Holder and his aides have stated of depoliticizing the Justice Department.
“He has incredible stature in the legal community,” the ex-DOJ official said of Verrilli.
Verrilli wouldn’t be a risk-free pick. He has gotten a bit crossways with some of Justice’s national security lawyers over an issue involving something which turned out to be inaccurate that he told the Supreme Court about disclosing surveillance to defendants in criminal cases. The dispute ultimately led to a change in policy increasing such disclosures. But the dust-up doesn’t seem to have affected his standing across the department — and may even have improved it.
And while Verrilli regularly argues at the Supreme Court as solicitor general, his highest profile outing — defending Obamacare — was seen by many analysts as something of a flop. There are Democrats who are still shaken, and some who suggest that his nomination would be yet another opening for Republicans to try to raise questions about Obamacare. But that would likely be a difficult argument for Republicans to mount as part of an attempt to derail Verrilli.
“That he arguably sort of flubbed the arguments on Obamacare is mitigated by the fact that you won,” a former DOJ official said. “It’s not much of a hit against him.”
