President Joe Biden on Wednesday ended his bid to confirm April Perry to serve as Chicago's top federal prosecutor and nominated her instead to become a judge, after a Republican senator blocked her and other U.S. Department of Justice nominees in protest of the federal prosecution of former President Donald Trump.
Perry, who was nominated last year to become the first woman to serve as the new U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, was among seven new nominees to serve as life-tenured district court judges announced by the White House.
Her judicial nomination marked the end of an effort by Biden and Illinois' senior senator, Democratic Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Dick Durbin, to appoint Perry as the permanent successor to John Lausch, who left his post as the top prosecutor in Chicago in March 2023.
Perry, a former prosecutor, has since 2022 worked as the senior counsel of global investigations and fraud and abuse prevention at Chicago-headquartered GE HealthCare. Biden nominated her to the U.S. Attorney position in June.
But while the Senate Judiciary Committee advanced her nomination on a 12-9 vote in September, her path to confirmation by the full Senate was stalled by Senator J.D. Vance, an Ohio Republican who has placed a "hold" on her and other U.S. Attorney nominees that has prevented them from securing easy confirmation.
Vance began placing a hold on Biden's nominees to the U.S. Department of Justice after Special Counsel Jack Smith secured the first of two federal indictments against Trump, who is charged with retaining classified documents after leaving office and with illegal efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss.
Durbin on several occasions went to the floor seeking to secure confirmation of Perry, only to have Vance object to her being confirmed by unanimous consent, the method by which the Senate has long historically confirmed U.S. Attorneys.
She has now been nominated to instead fill an expected vacancy on the Chicago district court that would be created upon the Senate's confirming U.S. District Judge Nancy Maldonado's elevation to the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Wednesday's other judicial nominees included three California state court judges nominated to serve on the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California: Judges Michelle Williams Court, Anne Hwang and Cynthia Valenzuela.
In New York, Biden moved to elevate U.S. Magistrate Judge Sarah Netburn to become a life-tenured district court judge in Manhattan.
The president also nominated Murray, Plumb & Murray partner Stacey Neumann to serve on the bench in Maine. He nominated Danna Jackson, tribal attorney for the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes in Pablo, Montana, to serve as a judge in that state.
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