Patching up the DOJ...

Today’s confirmation hearings for Kevin O’Connor (left) and Gregory Katsas (right) marked the 9th and 10th Justice Department nominations to be scrutinized by the Senate Judiciary Committee since Alberto Gonzales stepped down in September. And perhaps accordingly, there was a sense that patching up the department has become, well, a bit di rigeur.

O’Connor, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Connecticut, is up for the associate attorney general, the DOJ’s No. 3 spot. Katsas, a deputy in the Civil Division, has been keeping O’Connor’s presumed seat warm since August, in an acting capacity. He’s been nominated assistant attorney general of the Civil Division.

Only Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), who chaired the hearing, and Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) came with questions. Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), the committee’s ranking member, appeared briefly to offer some kind remarks about the men, but he dipped out before the Q & A to meet with a handful of constituents who had descended on the Capitol to protest Roe v. Wade on its 35th anniversary.

The sharpest questions, from Whitehouse, focused on O’Connor’s time as Alberto Gonzales chief of staff, a post he held from April 2007 to November 2007. In July 2007 Gonzales gave sworn testimony that a late night visit paid to then Attorney General John Ashcroft in 2004 was not about the administration’s warrant wiretapping program. Justice Department officials have since contradicted his testimony.

Whitehouse asked whether O’Connor helped Gonzales prepare his July statements. O’Connor said that he had, but he was not privy to classified information about the warrantless spy program. Whitehouse seemed satisfied that O’Connor was “outside of the classification bubble.”

The senator also asked O’Connor whether he was aware that Gonzales had met with senior aides to discuss a plan for firing a group of U.S. attorneys. Gonzales testified last March that he had not had "any discussions" about the dismissals, but former aides testified that Gonzales was more intimately involved.

O’Connor said that he became aware of the inconsistencies when they surfaced, and that he had no reason to distrust the attorney general’s testimony.

O’Connor and Katsas, when asked about the executive power and the role of the Justice Department in articulating the president’s legal policy, both said that they would resign if they were asked to do something that they could not justify in the law.

The senators withheld questions about simulated drowning or the CIA interrogation tapes, unlike last month, during the confirmation hearings for U.S. District Judge Mark Filip, who is waiting for a vote on his nomination to the department’s No. 2 post.

Cardin did ask Katsas whether he thought the administration should seek advice from the international community on how to off-load hundreds of detainees held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and elsewhere. Katsas said the question was “above my pay grade,” but ventured that it would be “advisable to consult with other nations, particularly our allies.”

Katsas, a graduate of Harvard Law School, was a partner at Jones Day before joining the Justice Department in 2001 as a deputy assistant attorney general. He clerked for Justice Clarence Thomas while Thomas was still a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, and again, after his confirmation to the Supreme Court.

Prior to his work in the Justice Department, O'Connor was a partner at Day, Berry & Howard (now Day Pitney), and he taught at his alma mater, University of Connecticut School of Law.

The committee has not scheduled a vote on their nominations.