President Donald Trump’s nominees for federal judgeships and US attorneys in Mississippi are caught up in a dispute between a Senate Judiciary Committee Republican and the state’s senior GOP lawmaker.
Four nominees, two for district judgeships and two for US attorney posts, have experienced weeks long delays on getting votes in committee as Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina and Sen. Roger Wicker of Mississippi negotiate issues unrelated to the backgrounds or records of the four nominees.
“We’re just working through some minor issues. I wouldn’t expect them to be on hold for very long,” Tillis told Bloomberg Law on Friday. “Roger Wicker is one of my favorite members, and we’re just going through negotiations.”
Tillis wouldn’t elaborate on those outside issues, and Wicker declined to comment on the matter.
The dispute is an unusual disruption to the president’s push to appoint his picks to lifetime judgeships and key prosecutor positions.
Republicans hold a 12-10 majority on the panel that’s advanced most of Trump’s picks with virtually no resistance from its GOP members.
The impacted nominees include James Maxwell and Robert Chamberlin, both Mississippi state supreme court justices who’ve been tapped for judgeships on the US District Court for the Northern District of Mississippi.
The chief prosecutor picks include James Kruger for the Southern District of Mississippi, and Scott Leary, for the Northern District.
Kruger was previously line attorney in the Southern District office and the executive director of the Mississippi Office of Homeland Security. Leary is an assistant US attorney in the Northern District office.
(Adds Tillis comments.)
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