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Lawfare Daily: Congressional Power and the Confirmation Process, with Mike Stern and Donald Sherman

Molly E. Reynolds, Donald Sherman, Michael Stern, Jen Patja
Wednesday, November 27, 2024, 8:00 AM
What issues might President-elect Trump's nominees face during confirmation?

Published by The Lawfare Institute
in Cooperation With
Brookings

Molly Reynolds, Senior Fellow at Brookings and Senior Editor at Lawfare, sits down with Mike Stern, a lawyer specializing in congressional legal issues and former Senior Counsel to the U.S. House of Representatives, and Donald Sherman, Executive Director and Chief Counsel at CREW, to discuss the Senate confirmation process and expectations for congressional oversight in the 119th Congress. They discuss the tools available to the Senate now and after the start of the new Congress in January, legal questions related to President-elect Trump’s potential plans for recess appointments, and what issues related to congressional oversight to watch next year.

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Molly Reynolds is a senior fellow in Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution. She studies Congress, with an emphasis on how congressional rules and procedure affect domestic policy outcomes.
Donald Sherman is the executive direct and chief counsel at Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW).
Michael Stern is an attorney who specializes in legal issues affecting Congress and the legislative process, including congressional ethics, elections, investigations, lobbying and constitutional reform. He served as Senior Counsel to the U.S. House of Representatives from 1996 to 2004. He later served as Deputy Staff Director for Investigations for the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs and Special Counsel to the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. He has co-chaired the D.C. Bar’s Administrative Law and Agency Practice Section and served on the ABA Task Force on Lobbying Reform and the Virginia Freedom of Information Advisory Council. He blogs about congressional legal issues at www.pointoforder.com and is currently teaching a course on congressional oversight at the George Washington University School of Political Management.
Jen Patja is the editor and producer of the Lawfare Podcast and Rational Security. She currently serves as the Co-Executive Director of Virginia Civics, a nonprofit organization that empowers the next generation of leaders in Virginia by promoting constitutional literacy, critical thinking, and civic engagement. She is the former Deputy Director of the Robert H. Smith Center for the Constitution at James Madison's Montpelier and has been a freelance editor for over 20 years.