Barr's Justice Dept. Honors Kavanaugh Team at Private Ceremony
The private ceremony came a day after a public event at DAR Constitution Hall, where other recipients of the Attorney General's Award for Distinguished Service were honored for their work on significant prosecutions last year.
October 24, 2019 at 03:16 PM
5 minute read
At a private ceremony Thursday morning, U.S. Attorney General William Barr presented one of the Justice Department's most prestigious awards to a group of government lawyers who supported Brett Kavanaugh's nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court in 2018, a contentious confirmation process that became embroiled in allegations of sexual misconduct.
The ceremony came a day after a public event at DAR Constitution Hall, a venue near the White House, where other recipients of the Attorney General's Award for Distinguished Service were honored for their work on significant prosecutions last year. Lee Lofthus, a Justice Department leader who has served since 2006 as assistant attorney general for administration, said during Wednesday's ceremony that the Kavanaugh team would be honored Thursday at the Justice Department.
The Justice Department awards ceremony is a widely attended annual event, drawing career and political leaders—and their staff—from across divisions. Lawyers are honored on stage by name and pose for photographs with the attorney general, along with other Justice Department leaders. Ten DOJ lawyers were honored publicly in 2017 for their work on the nomination of Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court.
A Justice Department official said the Kavanaugh honorees, including more than 25 political appointees and career lawyers, were not presented with their awards during Wednesday's public ceremony because of time restrictions for the event.
Among the Justice Department lawyers awarded for their support of Kavanaugh's nomination was Assistant Attorney General Beth Williams, the head of the office of legal policy, which traditionally takes a leading role advancing Supreme Court nominations. Her top deputy, Mark Champoux—along with lawyers from various divisions of the Justice Department and career prosecutors from U.S. attorneys' offices in Massachusetts, New Mexico and California—also received the distinguished service honor.
During the private awards presentation Thursday, held on the top floor of the Justice Department, Barr also recognized lawyers who were detailed to the White House during Kavanaugh's confirmation process, including deputy assistant attorneys general James Burnham and Michael Murray. Those lawyers were ineligible for the distinguished service award because they had been detailed to the Trump White House.
Thursday's private ceremony, like the public one held a day before, was emceed by Claire McCusker Murray, a top Justice Department official who helped shepherd Kavanaugh through the confirmation process last year while serving as a Trump White House lawyer. Murray, a former Kirkland & Ellis partner who clerked for Kavanaugh during his tenure on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, left the White House earlier this year to become a top adviser to Barr. In May, she was named principal deputy associate attorney general, a role that has given her broad oversight of the Justice Department's civil cases, including litigation in defense of Trump administration policies.
The distinguished service honor, the Justice Department's second highest, is customarily given to lawyers involved in significant prosecutions. At Wednesday's public ceremony, it was awarded to teams that dismantled a transnational sex trafficking ring, pursued hackers backed by North Korea and prosecuted members of violent street gangs in New York, in what the Justice Department described as the "largest gang takedown" in the city's history.
When President Donald Trump nominated Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court last year, then-Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein asked prosecutors to help review the records from the judge's government service, including his time as a White House aide for George W. Bush and as a lawyer in the independent counsel investigation of President Bill Clinton.
In a program for Wednesday's awards ceremony, the Justice Department lawyers involved in Kavaugh's nomination process were praised for displaying "exemplary leadership, organization, coordination, and professionalism." The team produced more than 440,000 pages to the U.S. Senate and responded to more than 1,200 questions in "just three days," the Justice Department said.
"The recipients completed an unprecedented amount of work under demanding, extraordinary, and unprecedented circumstances, maintaining the highest standards of excellence, commitment and civility," the Justice Department said.
Kavanaugh's confirmation was nearly derailed by a California college professor's allegation that the judge had sexually assaulted her when the two were teenagers living in the Washington suburbs. In testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Kavanaugh denied the allegations and said his confirmation process had become a "national disgrace."
In 2017, then-U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions publicly honored the lawyers and staff that worked on the nomination of Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court. Those distinguished service honorees included Laurence Rothenberg, a deputy assistant attorney general; senior counsel Ryan Higginbotham; and Lola Kingo, nomination counsel in the office of legal policy. Another nominee, Patrick Bumatay, has been nominated for a seat on the Ninth Circuit.
Read more:
This content has been archived. It is available through our partners, LexisNexis® and Bloomberg Law.
To view this content, please continue to their sites.
Not a Lexis Subscriber?
Subscribe Now
Not a Bloomberg Law Subscriber?
Subscribe Now
NOT FOR REPRINT
© 2024 ALM Global, LLC, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.
You Might Like
View AllTrump-Appointed Judge Presides Over NASCAR Antitrust Dispute Under Case Reassignment
3 minute readFTC, DOJ Withdrawal of Antitrust Guidelines for Collaboration Infuriates Republicans
5 minute readCan Law Firms Avoid Landing on 'Enemy' List During the Trump Administration?
5 minute readTrending Stories
- 1Simpson Restructuring Leader Moves Back to Weil
- 2How I Made Office Managing Partner: 'Mistakes and Setbacks Are Valuable Learning Experiences,' Says Kristen Behrens of Dilworth Paxson
- 3Trump 2.0: A Mostly Pro-Employer Agenda—But Not Entirely
- 4People in the News—Dec. 13, 2024—Gawthrop Greenwood, Reger Rizzo
- 5Pa. Supreme Court Unanimously Upholds Pa. Statutes Restricting the Ability of Municipalities to Regulate Firearms
Who Got The Work
Michael G. Bongiorno, Andrew Scott Dulberg and Elizabeth E. Driscoll from Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr have stepped in to represent Symbotic Inc., an A.I.-enabled technology platform that focuses on increasing supply chain efficiency, and other defendants in a pending shareholder derivative lawsuit. The case, filed Oct. 2 in Massachusetts District Court by the Brown Law Firm on behalf of Stephen Austen, accuses certain officers and directors of misleading investors in regard to Symbotic's potential for margin growth by failing to disclose that the company was not equipped to timely deploy its systems or manage expenses through project delays. The case, assigned to U.S. District Judge Nathaniel M. Gorton, is 1:24-cv-12522, Austen v. Cohen et al.
Who Got The Work
Edmund Polubinski and Marie Killmond of Davis Polk & Wardwell have entered appearances for data platform software development company MongoDB and other defendants in a pending shareholder derivative lawsuit. The action, filed Oct. 7 in New York Southern District Court by the Brown Law Firm, accuses the company's directors and/or officers of falsely expressing confidence in the company’s restructuring of its sales incentive plan and downplaying the severity of decreases in its upfront commitments. The case is 1:24-cv-07594, Roy v. Ittycheria et al.
Who Got The Work
Amy O. Bruchs and Kurt F. Ellison of Michael Best & Friedrich have entered appearances for Epic Systems Corp. in a pending employment discrimination lawsuit. The suit was filed Sept. 7 in Wisconsin Western District Court by Levine Eisberner LLC and Siri & Glimstad on behalf of a project manager who claims that he was wrongfully terminated after applying for a religious exemption to the defendant's COVID-19 vaccine mandate. The case, assigned to U.S. Magistrate Judge Anita Marie Boor, is 3:24-cv-00630, Secker, Nathan v. Epic Systems Corporation.
Who Got The Work
David X. Sullivan, Thomas J. Finn and Gregory A. Hall from McCarter & English have entered appearances for Sunrun Installation Services in a pending civil rights lawsuit. The complaint was filed Sept. 4 in Connecticut District Court by attorney Robert M. Berke on behalf of former employee George Edward Steins, who was arrested and charged with employing an unregistered home improvement salesperson. The complaint alleges that had Sunrun informed the Connecticut Department of Consumer Protection that the plaintiff's employment had ended in 2017 and that he no longer held Sunrun's home improvement contractor license, he would not have been hit with charges, which were dismissed in May 2024. The case, assigned to U.S. District Judge Jeffrey A. Meyer, is 3:24-cv-01423, Steins v. Sunrun, Inc. et al.
Who Got The Work
Greenberg Traurig shareholder Joshua L. Raskin has entered an appearance for boohoo.com UK Ltd. in a pending patent infringement lawsuit. The suit, filed Sept. 3 in Texas Eastern District Court by Rozier Hardt McDonough on behalf of Alto Dynamics, asserts five patents related to an online shopping platform. The case, assigned to U.S. District Judge Rodney Gilstrap, is 2:24-cv-00719, Alto Dynamics, LLC v. boohoo.com UK Limited.
Featured Firms
Law Offices of Gary Martin Hays & Associates, P.C.
(470) 294-1674
Law Offices of Mark E. Salomone
(857) 444-6468
Smith & Hassler
(713) 739-1250