A panel of the D.C. Council voted 3-2 today to deny confirmation of interim D.C. Attorney General Peter Nickles.
Nickles, who was nominated for the position five months ago and has spent a total of 11 months as the interim attorney general, will now face the full council, which meets tomorrow.
Councilmember Phil Mendelson, who chair’s the Committee on Public Safety and the Judiciary, introduced today a blistering 20-page report supporting his position that the panel should deny Nickles’ confirmation. The report said Nickles had shown himself to be too close to D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty and incapable of separating the mayor’s interests from the interest of the District.
“Mr. Nickles predecessors have universally recognized the independence innate in this role. The committee believes the rights, the safety, and the security of the citizens of the District of Columbia should not, on principle, be sacrificed to individual politics. However, in judgment, temperament, and practice, Mr. Nickles has adhered to his belief that the Attorney General’s primary client is the mayor, leaving the role of the peoples’ chief law enforcement officer vacant,” Mendelson writes.
The report goes on to criticize Nickles in a number of areas, including firing union attorneys allegedly without proper due process, promoting an e-mail deletion policy that would destroy all e-mails after six months, and supporting police checkpoint initiatives pursued by the mayor’s office.
The panel originally met to vote on a resolution that would have confirmed Nickles' nomination, but Mendelson filed a different proposed resolution in today's meeting that would deny his confirmation. The panel voted in support of the new resolution.
D.C. Council members Mary Cheh (D-Ward 3) and Yvette Alexander (D-Ward 7) joined Mendelson in voting against Nickles. Jack Evans (D-Ward 2) and Muriel Bowser (D-Ward 4) voted to support him.
Nickles did not return calls for comment.
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