President Joe Biden on Tuesday achieved the confirmation of three additional nominees for trial court judgeships as Senate Democrats continued their efforts to fill judicial vacancies before Republican President-elect Donald Trump assumes office.
The Democratic-led Senate approved Sparkle Sooknanan, an official in the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, as a life-tenured federal district court judge in Washington, D.C., with a 50-48 vote.
In separate votes, the Senate also confirmed two nominees for the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania: Philadelphia-based federal public defender Catherine Henry and Montgomery County Court of Common Pleas Judge Gail Weilheimer. Both confirmations passed by 50-48 votes.
Judicial Appointments Under Biden
These confirmations brought Biden’s total judicial appointments to 226. Over the next three weeks, Democrats aim to secure enough votes to surpass Donald Trump’s first-term record of 234 judicial appointments.
Sooknanan, originally from Trinidad and Tobago, previously clerked for liberal U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor. She worked at the law firm Jones Day from 2014 to 2021 before joining the Biden administration. Since 2023, she has served as the principal deputy assistant attorney general in the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, the second-highest role in the division.
Controversy Over Sooknanan’s Past
During her March Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, Sooknanan faced questions from Republican senators, including John Kennedy of Louisiana, about a report by journalist David Enrich in The New York Times Magazine. The report scrutinized Jones Day’s advocacy for conservative causes and its representation of Trump’s presidential campaigns.
The article alleged that Sooknanan had criticized the firm’s work representing the Pennsylvania Republican Party during the 2020 election over mail-in ballot litigation.
When Kennedy pressed her on whether she made such comments “about your client, who is paying you,” Sooknanan denied the claim, stating, “Those were not my words.” She emphasized that she never discussed the matter with the reporter or media and cited confidentiality obligations to the firm.
