Republican Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio on Wednesday likened the Biden administration to a “banana republic.”
Since June, Vance has rejected all attempts to give unanimous consent to appointments within the Department of Justice requiring Senate confirmation, according to a news release on his website.
On Wednesday, he doubled down on his position during comments in the Senate.
“I object to this because we are living in a banana republic where the President is using his Department of Justice to go after his chief political rival, the person he will appear on the ballot with in about a year,” Vance said in a post shared on social media.
No more banana republic stuff from Joe Biden. So long as he goes after his political opponents, I will hold nominations to the Department of “Justice” pic.twitter.com/Tfc3d69ind
— J.D. Vance (@JDVance1) November 1, 2023
Earlier in his remarks, he said the need to prosecute drug cases is due to the Biden administration’s border policies.
“I think it takes a special amount of gall to be from Joe Biden’s political party and to complain about the fentanyl crisis that is ravaging, not just Ohio, but the entire country, because it is Joe Biden’s border policies that have invited this fentanyl into our country at record levels,” he said.
He noted that although there was a time when unanimous consent to move the appointment along was routine, he noted that “in that time, when these nominations sailed through unanimous consent, the Department of Justice was not trying to throw the political rival of the President of the United States in prison.”
In June, Vance said that the Department of Justice’s persecution of Trump was a major reason for his stand, but not the only one.
“Donald Trump is merely the latest victim of a Department of Justice that cares more about politics than law enforcement. Merrick Garland’s department harasses Christians for pro-life advocacy, but allows hardened criminals to walk our streets unpunished,” Vance said then, according to comments on his website.
“If Merrick Garland wants to use these officials to harass Joe Biden’s political opponents, we will grind his department to a halt,” he said.
In a September comment on his website, he said the entire Justice Department is stained by the Trump prosecutions and persecution.
“The DOJ is and always has been defined by its most consequential investigations and prosecutions. This DOJ is thus defined by its selective prosecution of the leader of the opposition, the man running against Joe Biden to become President of the United States,” he said.
“Now, this unprecedented double standard, selectively prosecuting Donald Trump, leaving the President and his family completely untouched is a reason why the Department of Justice’s public confidence has completely collapsed,” he said.
Vance said his action was “extraordinary. But what’s more extraordinary is this moment in time where the leader of the opposition is being prosecuted by the President of the United States and the Department of Justice again, and again, and again.”
Meanwhile, he said, the Justice Department was “using its powers to go after people from pro-life activists to members of the community who are just exercising their rights.”
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.