U.S. Senator Mark Warner criticized Republican House members today for conducting their own interviews with candidates for the U.S. attorney position in Virginia’s Western District—a role typically filled through recommendations from the state’s two senators.
“You know I’m disappointed,” Warner said during a press call Thursday when asked by Cardinal News.
The response from Warner was first reported by Blue Virginia.
Under normal protocol, U.S. senators from the home state vet and recommend candidates for U.S. attorney appointments to the president, streamlining the Senate confirmation process.
Virginia’s U.S. Senators Tim Kaine and Warner recommended House of Delegates Minority Leader Todd Gilbert, R-Shenandoah, and Senior Assistant Attorney General Robert Tracci for the Western District nomination.
Gilbert and Tracci confirmed to Virginia Scope this week that they were recently interviewed by representatives for Reps. Ben Cline, Morgan Griffith and John McGuire, which is not how the process traditionally plays out.
“I’ve worked well with all of our Republican House members,” Warner continued. “We take a lot of input from those members. The idea that they’re setting up a separate partisan review is not the way the process works.”
Related: Gilbert says he will step down as leader if the caucus has new elections
Warner said that he and Kaine worked quickly and thoroughly to find candidates that President Trump will like and said the White House already notified them that their process was good.
“We realized we had to recommend people that would have been supporters of Mr. Trump,” Warner said. “So there’s no political bias here. And yeah I kind of scratch my head about it.”
He said it would be a “huge step backwards” if the White House goes around the traditional process of taking the senators’ recommendations.
“I hope at the end of the day, the White House is going to rely upon the same process that every White House, including the first Trump administration, where the sitting senators review candidates and make recommendations,” Warner said.