Senate Democrats Reeeeeally Don’t Want Joe Lieberman As FBI Director

Former Connecticut senator Joe Lieberman. Image by getty images

By Aiden Pink May 18, 2017

President Trump likely believed that naming former Sen. Joe Lieberman as a frontrunner to be the new FBI director would help win over Lieberman’s former Democratic colleagues in the Senate. But according to Politico, he appears to be severely mistaken.

“Some Senate Democrats hold a grudge against Lieberman for his rightward turn and opposition to some of President Barack Obama’s agenda late in his Senate career,” Politico’s Burgess Everett and Seung Min Kim wrote Thursday. “Others say even though they respect Lieberman, the FBI director should not be a former politician. And all Democratic senators interviewed for this story said the former Connecticut senator lacks the kind of experience needed for the post.”

Lieberman, who became the first Jew to be named to a major party ticket when he was the Democrats’ 2000 Vice Presidential candidate, served as Connecticut’s Attorney General in the 1980s but otherwise has no law enforcement experience, a fact cited by the relatively moderate Claire McCaskill and the more progressive Chris Murphy, who holds Lieberman’s old seat.

“Joe Lieberman has no real law enforcement credentials. Look where he works now, a Trump law firm. That tells me a lot,” said Sen. Sherrod Brown. Lieberman is currently a senior counsel at the New York law firm Kasowitz Benson Torres Friedman LLP, which has represented Trump for years.

Brown also shared what Politico called “a monologue on Lieberman’s faults,” ending with: “That’s all on the record.”

Contact Aiden Pink at [email protected] or on Twitter, @aidenpink.

Aiden Pink is the Deputy News Editor for the Forward. Contact him at [email protected] or on Twitter, @aidenpink.

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