U.S. Senate Video
Federal judge nominee Sparkle Sooknanan appears before the Senate Judiciary Committee, March 20, 2024.
Sparkle Sooknanan, the Biden nominee for a federal judgeship in the District of Columbia who previously worked for hedge funds attempting to extract payments on Puerto Rican debt, is facing questions about whether she was untruthful to Congress about her role in those cases.
Under questioning by Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) at her confirmation hearing, Sooknanan was asked about one particular case, which argued that hedge funds should be exempted from a bankruptcy-like stay on debt payments from Puerto Rico because it would be an unconstitutional taking. Sooknanan tried to downplay her participation. “Jones Day was retained in that case to represent a group of clients. Along with my colleagues, I made the best possible arguments,” she said.
“Are you saying it wasn’t voluntary?” Hawley replied. “You represented them, right? You were lead counsel, I thought. Were you lead counsel?”
Sooknanan denied this. “Senator, I was not lead counsel. I was one of many lawyers who handled that litigation.”
Jones Day, the law firm where Sooknanan was a partner, differed from this interpretation at the time. In a 2020 press release, the firm praised Sooknanan, who was named a “rising star” by The National Law Journal, by saying: “One of her significant representations was leading the team representing a group of investors in bonds issued by Puerto Rico’s pension system.”
In addition, when hedge funds petitioned the Supreme Court in the case in June 2019, Sooknanan is listed as the “counsel of record” in legal filings, one of which can be viewed from the Jones Day website.
In questions for the record obtained by the Prospect, Sen. Hawley has asked Sooknanan about these discrepancies. “How is this consistent with your testimony that you were not lead counsel in this case?” Hawley writes.
Sooknanan has not yet responded to these questions.
Sooknanan’s representation of vulture funds in Puerto Rico has angered some of the island’s biggest defenders in Washington. Rep. Nydia Velázquez (D-NY), ranking Democrat on the House Small Business Committee, condemned the nomination as “an insult to the people of Puerto Rico” last month. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) retweeted Velázquez’s post.
At the confirmation hearing, Sooknanan made the defense was that she complied with all ethical standards as an attorney and that her clients are entitled to vigorous counsel. But senators noted that she spoke against Jones Day’s representation of Donald Trump in cases challenging the 2020 election, and quit the firm a few months later.
Asked about this, Sooknanan insisted that she “did not resign from Jones Day because of any particular representation.” When asked about her being quoted in The New York Times saying that Trump election challenges were “brought for no other reason than to deprive poor people of the right to vote,” she denied saying that as well. “Those were not my words. I do not know who provided that quote to the reporter,” Sooknanan told Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA).
“So if we deposed your partners, on that call, they would say, ‘No she never said it,’” Kennedy asked.
Sooknanan replied: “Senator, I am telling you here today, under oath, that those were not my words.”
In a statement to the Prospect, a spokesperson for Senate Judiciary Committee chair Dick Durbin said that he “stands by the comments he made praising Ms. Sooknanan’s nomination... and looks forward to seeing her confirmed.” The Prospect reached out to all 51 Senate Democrats about the Sooknanan nomination; other than Durbin, only the office of Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) responded, saying that he had not made up his mind on the matter.
