Obama U.S. Attorney Nominee David Barlow Is Tea Party Senator's General Counsel

WASHINGTON -- Presidents routinely choose party loyalists as their U.S. attorneys. But normally, they choose nominees from their own party.

President Barack Obama dismayed fellow Democrats on Tuesday when he announced his pick to be the next U.S. attorney for Utah is David Barlow, currently the general counsel to freshman senator and Tea Party favorite Mike Lee (R-Utah).

It's unclear whether Barlow shares Lee's more extreme legal theories about the limits of federal power. But what is known about Barlow is that he has no significant criminal law experience -- he was a corporate lawyer practicing pharmaceutical defense, toxic tort and product liability law before starting to work for Lee in January -- and he's a registered Republican who contributed $300 to Obama's opponent, Sen. John McCain, in 2008.

Todd Taylor, executive director of the Utah Democratic Party, said his group sent the names of several strong, qualified Democratic candidates for the job to the White House, then never heard anything back.

"We're just deeply disappointed" by the Barlow nomination, Taylor said, "and given the legal philosophy of Mike Lee, it leads us to wonder what this guy even thinks about the law."

The liberal ThinkProgress blog suggested that "Lee's contempt for the Constitution raises serious concerns about Barlow’s fitness to serve as Utah's top federal attorney."

All in all, Taylor said, the nomination "just raises a bunch of question about why."

Huffington Post

That's an extraordinary appointment. I would guess that somebody just cashed in a significant IOU to get that deal done. Who was owed and for what, I have not the slightest.