A sharply divided House Judiciary Committee advanced a bill Thursday that would greatly expand an administration’s ability to install hand-picked officials for top prosecutor roles.
The panel, in a 12-11 party-line vote, approved legislation that would strip district court judges of their power to appoint temporary U.S. attorneys in certain circumstances, as some courts have sought to do during the second Trump administration.
Under current federal law about vacancies, the attorney general is allowed to select an interim U.S. attorney to serve for 120 days, after which the appointment authority falls to the district court. The bill would remove the section that gives the authority to the court and change language in another section that sets out the 120-day limit.
