Bondi Eliminates ABA's Role in Vetting Trump Judicial Picks

[LetMyPeopleVote]

The ABA has historically played an important role in vetting judges

Link to tweet

https://news.bloomberglaw.com/us-law-week/bondi-eliminates-abas-role-in-vetting-trump-judicial-nominees

The Justice Department won’t allow the American Bar Association to vet President Donald Trump’s picks for judicial appointments.

The Justice Department’s Office of Legal Policy, which prepares judicial nominees, will no longer “direct nominees to provide waivers allowing the ABA access to non-public information, including bar records,” according to the Thursday letter. Nominees also won’t respond to ABA questionnaires or sit for interviews with the ABA’s Standing Committee on the Federal Judiciary.

“Unfortunately, the ABA no longer functions as a fair arbiter of nominees’ qualifications, and its ratings invariably and demonstrably favor nominees put forth by Democratic administrations,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a Thursday letter to ABA President William Bay.

The changes represent a further diminishment of the ABA’s customary role in vetting judicial nominations, which had already shrank during several prior administrations. Trump, like George W. Bush before him, had cut off the ABA’s ability to vet candidates before they were nominated, a practice Joe Biden continued.

The ABA’s standing committee, which is independent from the larger organization, is a 15-member panel that’s helped vet judicial nominees since the Eisenhower era. Its members, including the chairman, are appointed by the association’s president to three-year terms. The ranks have included trial attorneys, law professors, and Big Law partners.

Lawyers under consideration are rated as “not qualified,” “qualified,” or “well qualified.”

I wonder which of trump's nominees know that they would fail this vetting

[sinkingfeeling]

1. Gotta get the quacks and MAGA loyalists installed without vetting.

[hlthe2b]

2. With apologies to the most intelligent of porcine species...

but "pig nose" says what?

I hope to live to see her disbarred throughout the US.

[orangecrush]

3. All of them

I don't see this country surviving 4 years of this.

[Ocelot II]

4. Trump's nominees are unlikely to survive ABA's vetting

since, like all other positions, his judicial appointments are based on loyalty and nothing else, with the possible exception of having been employed by Fox "News." The ABA is hardly a left-wing organization - it's about as Establishment as you can get - but the fact that it doesn't have a demonstrable and extreme right-wing bias means it doesn't get to participate. There's nothing stopping it from commenting, though, and I hope it does.

[unblock]

8. Presumably this means republicans won't cooperate with the aba's interviews and investigations

I think the investigations were always reviews of publicly available information (opinions, articles,, etc.) and interviews with former professors, clerks, and associates. Not sure if nominees themselves were ever interviewed directly.

So they'll get cooperation from critics but not so much from loyalists. I'm not sure that will accomplish what they think it will accomplish.

Anyway, yeah, the aba was always offering an evaluation as a private entity anyway, so this changes little. Mostly it's just an attempt to undermine the aba's relevance.

This way, they can pretend the aba's evaluation is based on "incomplete" information when really not much has changed.

[unblock]

5. Blatantly pro-corruption and pro-incompetence

We are so deep into howlingly biased and surreal media treatment of these things, as this will be covered with the now-usual ho-hum, just another interesting thing this administration is doing. Critics disapprove and supporters approve and polls don't change, just like any other thing on any other day.

Imagine if a democratic nominee couldn't pass their vetting.
Imagine if a democratic president said we'll nominate them anyway.
Imagine if a democratic senate said we'll confirm them anyway.
Imagine if it happened again and again.
Now imagine if a democratic president said we're going to fire the investigators so they can't even point out how bad our nominees are.

The media should be screaming from the hilltops at this, among other things.

But they won't. They value "access" to the most thoroughly documented liar in history because that's how much they care about the truth, facts, ethics, and democracy.

[Irish_Dem]

6. She is an attorney destroying the legal profession.

[Bread and Circuses]

7. Republicans don't need No Stinkin' ABA! They've got Trump U Graduates!

[sakabatou]

9. Watch them hire even more incompetent and corrupt lawyers!

[GoodRaisin]

10. The ABA ought to disbar Bondi.

[Ocelot II]

11. The ABA can't disbar anybody. It's a private professional association of lawyers;

it's not a government agency and membership is voluntary. Only state bar agencies have authority over lawyers' licenses as to the specific states where they are licensed to practice.

[Ms. Toad]

12. I'm amazed how many times this has to be repeated on DU. n/t

[GoodRaisin]

13. Great minds must think alike.

First time I’ve seen it.

[Ms. Toad]

16. I've explained it at least a half dozen times.

And each time I get push back from people who don't understand the difference between the ABA and the state licensing entities.

[GoodRaisin]

17. No pushback from me.

I learn lots of things I didn’t know on DU.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

14. The ABA rated 10% of Trump's picks "Not Qualified" vs. 2% for Clinton, clear liberal gatekeeping!

Here is Bondi's letter. Ten Percent (10%) is a high number for unqualified judicial candidates.

Link to tweet

[LetMyPeopleVote]

15. I am amused that Bondi announced this change at the same time a true asshole is being nominated by trump

The president insisted that Emil Bove is “respected by everyone.” All things considered, “everyone” was probably being generous.

Trump wants to make one of his controversial former defense lawyers an appeals court judge.
The conman insisted that Emil Bove is “respected by everyone.” All things considered, “everyone” was probably being generous.
www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddo...

— hateGOP (@hategop.bsky.social) 2025-05-29T21:20:34.561Z

https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/trump-wants-make-one-controversial-former-defense-lawyers-appeals-cour-rcna209761

Nearly 20 years ago, during George W. Bush’s fifth year in the White House, the Republican president thought it’d be a good idea to nominate his own former lawyer, Harriet Miers, to serve as a U.S. Supreme Court justice. This quickly proved to be a fiasco, which collapsed within weeks.

Two decades later, Donald Trump is apparently thinking along similar lines: The incumbent GOP president, also in his fifth year, is nominating one of his own former lawyers to serve on the federal appellate bench. The New York Times reported:

President Trump announced Wednesday that he would nominate Emil Bove III, the polarizing and widely feared top Justice Department official responsible for strong-arm tactics in enacting Mr. Trump’s immigration agenda, to be a federal appeals judge. Mr. Bove, 44, is a former criminal defense lawyer for Mr. Trump. He would fill a vacancy on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, which covers Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware.

......Let’s start with Bove’s rise to prominence as a prosecutor in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, where he faced a variety of allegations about his lack of professionalism. The Associated Press reported a few months ago, “One lawyer complained in the 2018 email that Bove was ‘completely reckless and out of control’ in how he handled his cases. Another, upset about Bove’s rudeness and power plays, said he needed ‘adult supervision.’ A third, a top federal public defender in the city, said ‘he cannot be bothered to treat lesser mortals with respect or empathy.’”

The AP quoted Christine Chung, a former federal prosecutor, who said, “In my experience litigating against him, what [Bove] enjoyed most as a prosecutor was wielding power — the single worst possible trait for a public servant. But people won’t speak against him publicly because he’s also vindictive.”

Bove later parlayed this background into a role as a Trump defense attorney, punctuated by his defeat in the Stormy Daniels case......

In fact, as my MSNBC colleague Lisa Rubin noted in February, Bove’s handling of the Adams case generated “at least three complaints about him ... to the relevant New York state body responsible for attorney discipline.” Around the same time, Rubin added, the Campaign for Accountability submitted a similar complaint to both the state and the chief judge of the Southern District, alleging that Bove’s conduct in connection with the Adams case may have violated at least six different ethical rules.

The idea that this guy deserves a lifetime position on the federal appellate bench is plainly absurd. Trump’s nomination creates yet another test for Senate Republicans, which, if recent history is any guide, they will almost certainly fail.

The confirmation hearings are bound to be interesting. Watch this space.