The confirmation vote for whether Darin Smith can be the U.S. Attorney for Wyoming for the next four years is now set for next week.
Wyoming’s two Republican senators told Cowboy State Daily they anticipate voting in his favor.
That’s after the Senate took a procedural vote Monday that broke along party lines, 46-45 in favor of considering Smith’s nomination in a group with 48 other presidential nominees to various federal offices.
“Sen. (Cynthia) Lummis has been fully supportive of Darin Smith’s nomination and looks forward to voting to confirm him as Wyoming’s U.S Attorney,” wrote Lummis’ communications director Joe Jackson in a Monday email to Cowboy State Daily.
Sen. John Barrasso’s communications director Laura Mengelkamp issued a similar statement, saying, “Senator Barrasso supports Darin Smith’s nomination for U.S. Attorney for Wyoming. He is well-qualified to serve as Wyoming’s chief federal law enforcement officer.”
The resolution from Monday evening was to consider the 49 nominees in executive session. But that doesn’t mean the same thing in the U.S. Senate as it does in local proceedings, Mengelkamp and Jackson both noted.
“Executive session” on a local level means a discussion on public matters held behind closed doors, for security and other heightened sensitivity reasons that Wyoming law lists specifically.
In the Senate, it means tending to executive matters.
“All votes and deliberation will remain public on the Senate floor,” wrote Mengelkamp.
Jackson sent a similar clarification via email.
U.S. Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin had words Monday about Smith, after emerging as one of his toughest critics during a December committee hearing on Smith’s nomination as well.
Durbin on Monday criticized Smith for being present at the U.S. Capitol grounds during the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol breach.
“Smith contended that rioters were entrapped and that the U.S. Capitol police were guilty of massive incompetence,” Durbin told the chamber, calling that “an embarrassing statement” and a “slap in the face” to the Capitol police who’d worked to defend the Capitol.
Durbin also criticized the president’s nominee for U.S. Attorney for Alabama for coming to the defense of a rioter who’d been sent to prison.
Smith in a response to Cowboy State Daily’s Tuesday text message request for comment wrote, “I am totally qualified to be the US Attorney for the District of Wyoming.”
Meanwhile, defense attorneys in at least eight federal cases are contending that Smith polluted grand jury proceedings in March by maligning the defendants and saying defendants were “murderers,” while talking to grand jurors.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office of Wyoming has countered, saying Smith’s comments were “ill-advised” but don’t rise to the level the defenders say, nor do they prejudice the cases involved.
Those disputes are ongoing in court.
Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.
