Eighteen years ago, amid a George W. Bush-era controversy over the firing and appointment of U.S. attorneys, then-Sen. Dianne Feinstein and a group of other senators advocated on the chamber floor for a solution: Restore a 120-day cap on the executive branch’s interim appointment power.
“If after that time the president has not sent up a nominee to the Senate and had that nominee confirmed, then the authority to appoint an interim U.S. attorney will fall to the district court,” the late California senator said of the 2007 legislation known as the Preserving United States Attorney Independence Act. It passed 94-2.
Now, the wording of that statute is at the center of the high-profile criminal cases against former FBI Director James B. Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James, prosecutions widely seen as part of a retribution campaign from President Donald Trump against perceived political adversaries.
