The recent and unexpected departure of the Justice Department’s No. 3 official has added to the strain at the agency which already struggles with lack of permanent, politically appointed leaders for a number of its most important divisions.
Associate Attorney General Rachel Brand resigned from her post, building to the agency’s problem which has led to instability and has prevented the Trump administration from fully implementing its agenda over a year after Attorney General Jeff Sessions took office, Associated Press reports.
Sessions expressed on Monday his disappointment with the situation, putting the blame on an unnamed Republican senator for preventing the confirmations of key figures, including the heads of the department’s national security, criminal and civil rights divisions.
Although Sessions didn’t mention the senator by name, he was most likely referring to Senator Cory Gardner of Colorado, who promised to hold the confirmation of all Justice Department nominees following Sessions’ lifting of the Obama-era protections for states where marijuana had been legalized.
Gardner’s spokesman confirmed Monday that he continues to block the confirmation in protest. As a result, some of the president’s nominees have faced uncertainty while waiting on a confirmation for months.
“It’s getting frustrating. These are critically important components … and we can’t even get a vote,” Sessions said.
Brand announced her departure on Friday, saying she was leaving for a top legal job at Walmart after spending a little under nine months overseeing some of the department’s most politically challenging areas, including its civil rights, antitrust and civil rights divisions.
Her time at the Department of Justice was difficult and would have become even more so if she had been chosen to oversee special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation in case of Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein’s resignation or firing.
The process to nominate and confirm Brand’s replacement will take months.
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