Tag: unqualified judicial nominees

Trump judicial nominee cries over scathing letter from the American Bar Association

Washington Post logoThe American Bar Association had no shortage of criticism in its assessment of the Trump administration’s new judicial nominee.

Colleagues found Lawrence VanDyke to be “arrogant, lazy, an ideologue, and lacking in knowledge of the day-to-day practice,” the chair of an ABA committee wrote in the scathing letter, the result of 60 interviews with lawyers, judges and others who worked with the Justice Department attorney. Acquaintances also alleged a lack of humility, an “’entitlement’ temperament,” a closed mind and an inconsistent “commitment to being candid,” the letter said. It deemed VanDyke “not qualified” for a spot on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit.

The strongly worded review drew equally strong reactions at a Wednesday hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee — from Democrats who called the ABA findings unusual and troubling as well as from Republicans who called it a low attack from a group they’ve long accused of bias against conservatives. But one charge was particularly upsetting to VanDyke himself: The ABA’s report that he “would not say affirmatively that he would be fair to any litigant before him, notably members of the LGBTQ community.”

View the complete October 30 article by Hannah Knowles on The Washington Post website here.

He has never tried a case, but Trump wants to make him judge for life

The following article by Kristine Phillips was posted on the Washington Post website November 12, 2017:

Brett Talley in 2014. (Matt McClain/The Washington Post)

Brett Talley, a 36-year-old lawyer whom President Trump nominated for a lifetime federal judgeship, has practiced law for only three years and has yet to try a case.

Before his nomination in September, he had been unequivocal about his political views. “Hillary Rotten Clinton might be the best Trumpism yet,” says a tweet from his account, which has since been made private. “A Call to Arms: It’s Time to Join the National Rifle Association” was the title of a blog post he wrote in January 2013, a month after a gunman in Newtown, Conn., killed 27 people before taking his own life.

Talley, who also writes horror novels on the side, moved a step closer to becoming a federal district judge in his home state of Alabama on Thursday. Voting along party lines, the Senate Judiciary Committee, on which Republicans outnumber Democrats, approved Talley’s nomination, which now goes to the Senate for a full vote. Continue reading “He has never tried a case, but Trump wants to make him judge for life”