Judicial nominees will no longer respond to ABA questionnaires
The US justice department has restricted the American Bar Association's role in evaluating candidates for life-tenured federal judiciary positions, reported Reuters.
In a letter to ABA President William Bray, snippets of which were published by Reuters, US Attorney General Pam Bondi wrote that the legal body "no longer functions as a fair arbiter of nominees’ qualifications." She also accused the ABA of releasing ratings that "invariably and demonstrably favor nominees put forth by Democratic administrations."
The association would retain its ability to remark on judicial nominations, but nominees put forward by US President Donald Trump would not respond to ABA questionnaires. Moreover, the justice department would not direct nominees to provide the ABA with waivers granting access to bar records.
In 1953, former US president Dwight D. Eisenhower gave the ABA the power to review judicial nominees before the list was forwarded to the Senate. George W. Bush revoked the special access in 2001 before it was reinstated by Barack Obama during his term. Trump eliminated the practice in 2017 - during his first term in the Oval Office, the ABA had rated 10 of his judicial nominees as "not qualified."
The current measure, which was announced last Thursday, further restricts the ABA's contribution to the selection of judicial candidates by prohibiting the body from evaluating nominees after their naming. The ABA did not respond to a request for comment, Reuters said.
Just a day previously, Trump named six new judicial nominees, including principal associate deputy attorney general Emil Bove.
Bove had acted as Trump's criminal defense lawyer in a New York that saw the US president convicted of criminal charges over his payment of hush money to porn star Stormy Daniels. Trump nominated him to become a life-tenured judge on the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia.
