The Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday approved President Barack Obama's nominee for Justice Department inspector general.
The panel voted by voice to report the nomination of Michael Horowitz out of committee. Obama nominated the Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft partner in July.
Despite agreeing to the voice vote, Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa, the top Republican on the panel, said he still has some questions for Horowitz to answer. But the senator said he didn’t want to delay a panel vote on the nominee.
Horowitz specializes in internal investigation, white collar defense and regulatory compliance at Cadwalader, which he joined in 2002. He also was a commissioner for the U.S. Sentencing Commission from 2003 to 2009.
Before joining the firm, Horowitz served as deputy assistant attorney general and later as chief of staff for the DOJ Criminal Division from 1999 to 2002. He also spent time as assistant U.S. attorney in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York from 1991 to 1999, becoming the chief of the office’s public corruption unit in 1997.
Prior to his DOJ service, Horowitz was an associate at Debevoise & Plimpton and a clerk for U.S. District Judge John Davies of the Central District of California.
The nominee has a household net worth of $9.3 million, which he disclosed as part of the Senate confirmation process. By comparison, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder reported during his own confirmation in 2008 that he had a household net worth of $5.7 million.
Horowitz disclosed that he received $4.6 million in income and bonuses from his Cadwalader partnership during a period that includes 2010 and the first half of 2011.
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