Bar Association: ‘Deeply Disturbing’ That Pam Bondi Cut Us Out Of Vetting Trump’s Court Picks

WASHINGTON – The American Bar Association on Tuesday responded to Attorney General Pam Bondi’s stunning decision to cut the organization out of the process of vetting President Donald Trump’s nominees to lifetime federal judgeships, calling the move “deeply disturbing” and unprecedented.

In a lengthy letter to Bondi, ABA president William Bay refutes several accusations she made last month about the nonpartisan organization being an “activist group” that invariably favors judicial nominees put forward by Democratic presidents.

“The ABA is both surprised and disappointed that the Justice Department has decided for the first time in 72 years to (a) block access by the Standing Committee to judicial nominees and (b) to restrict access of the Standing Committee to information that is relevant in evaluating judicial nominees,” Bay said.

“The changes the Justice Department is apparently imposing will likely result in less transparency in the process of confirming nominees to lifetime appointments on the federal bench and appear to be based on incorrect information set forth in your letter,” he said.

Bay said the ABA has always occupied a unique rule in vetting judicial nominees because nobody else does “the type of in-depth, independent evaluation” the association does. Among other things, the ABA extensively reviews a nominee’s past legal writings, routinely interviews dozens of judges and lawyers who know a given nominee and conducts an extensive interview with each nominee.

Bay emphasized that ABA, which is America’s main legal organization, doesn’t advocate for any nominees or evaluate any nominees’ ideologies. It keeps its evaluations confidential and, he argued, it has a public service responsibility to the Senate and the general public.

“Your statements that the ABA is an activist organization and the suggestions that what the ABA may or may not support somehow permeates the ratings process are unsupported by the facts,” Bay told Bondi.

He added, “It is deeply disturbing that the Justice Department has decided to restrict access to judicial nominees without justification or basis.”

On top of everything, the ABA president says he never even got Bondi’s letter. He read about it on social media and is still waiting to receive it.

“We await receipt of the letter sent to us by your office,” he said.

Here’s a copy of Bay’s letter to Bondi:

So far in his second term, Trump has only nominated five people to lifetime federal judgeships. They more or less fit the bill of his first-term court picks: They all have records of attacking abortion rights, LGBTQ+ rights and civil rights. They’re all white. They’ve all faced condemnation from progressive and nonpartisan groups for being too ideologically extreme.

But what’s different is that Trump 2.0 is motivated entirely by vengeance against his perceived political enemies. It’s been playing out in his dangerous attacks on federal judges who rule against him, and it appears to be driving his decision to pick at least one of his judicial nominees, Emil Bove.

Bove, who previously served as Trump’s personal lawyer and has acted as his hatchet man at the Department of Justice, is up for a lifetime seat on a federal appeals court.