All posts tagged "Dick Durbin"

A senator dismissed a Department of Justice prosecutor who led a botched case against six protesters and is now being accused of misconduct, according to new reports.

Sheri Mecklenburg is a 20-year veteran DOJ prosecutor, according to Talking Points Memo reporter Josh Marshall. She led the case against the "Broadview Six," a group of protesters who were federally charged after demonstrating in front of an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility in Illinois last year.

In February, Mecklenburg suddenly withdrew from the case and took on a temporary assignment with the criminal justice team for Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats, according to reporting by NOTUS. ...

Democratic lawmakers are facing urgent calls for removal over the government shutdown deal.

Podcast host and CEO of The Rothkopf Group, David Rothkopf, writes in an opinion piece for The Daily Beast that Democratic leaders have failed to secure affordable health care for Americans, calling them "spineless, visionless, out of touch with the rank and file of the Democratic Party and clearly not up to the moment of crisis America faces."

He urged people not to give up on Democrats — or the country — entirely, but instead to channel that angry and disappointed energy to "take meaningful action to translate your fury and your disgust into steps that will ensure such political f--- ups do not happen again in the future."...

WASHINGTON — Even some Republican members of Congress are growing nervous about President Donald Trump's $230 million demand from the Justice Department, Raw Story discovered.

On Thursday, Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV) was among lawmakers who bothered coming to work during the government shutdown.

Asked for her views on Trump's hugely controversial claim that he should be compensated for being the subject of DOJ investigations into Russian election interference and his retention of classified information after leaving office, Moore Capito paused....

Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) is employing a tactic previously used by the GOP as he holds up the confirmation process for one of President Donald Trump U.S. attorney nominees, according to Politico.

The ranking member on the Senate Judiciary Committee announced this week that he was putting a hold on Jason Reding Quiñones's nomination for the Southern District of Florida, and might do the same with other Trump nominees.

"In doing so, Durbin would create a procedural hurdle that would likely slow Quiñones’ confirmation at a time when the Trump administration has yet to confirm any U.S. attorney nominees in the Senate," the article said....

CHICAGO — As a little girl in the 1980s, Khalalisa Norris aspired to become a letter carrier. She’d sit on her front porch in Chicago’s Austin neighborhood and wait for her local mailman, and eventual mail lady, each day.

In her 20s, Norris realized her dream, and ever since, she’s delivered mail on Chicago’s West Side.

But that dream became a nightmare....

The powerful Senate Judiciary Committee earned mixed reactions Thursday as it announced plans to review the ramifications of the Supreme Court’s ruling in former President Donald Trump's immunity case — with some saying it's "too little, too late."

Illinois Sen. Dick Durban (D), chairman of the panel, told HuffPost in a statement members will be hold a hearing — in September — at which they will "examine the breadth of future misconduct that may be immunized from prosecution, consider the unprecedented nature of this immunity in American history, and discuss legislative solutions to the dangers of this decision."

“The Senate Judiciary Committee will not tolerate these justices cherry-picking their way through text and history to impose their own extreme vision of presidential power on the American people,” Durbin said, saying Congress cannot turn a "blind-eye" to the high court's "dangerous decision" that "immunizes presidents who commit crimes."...