Donald Trump is suddenly showing weakness on judicial nomination

| 8:30 pm EDT July 19, 2018
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In a move that was not anticipated, several major news outlets are reporting that Donald J. Trump has pulled the nomination of Ryan Bounds for the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. South Carolina Republican Senator Tim Scott raised concerns at a Senate lunch Thursday, shortly before a vote was to be held by the Senate on Bounds’ nomination.

While a student at Stanford University, Bounds had written a number of columns for a newspaper that were discriminatory and insensitive. A bipartisan screening committee in Oregon was not provided the writings by Bounds, and both Senators Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley of Oregon withheld their blue slips for such nondisclosure. Had Bounds been confirmed, it would have been the first time in decades that a judicial confirmation proceeded with neither home state Senator returning a blue slip.

Senator Chuck Grassley, Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, had supported Bounds last week, stating: “I don’t believe misguided statements made in a college newspaper 25 years ago should disqualify Mr. Bounds. I hope that we don’t live in a world where controversial things that we write in college end our careers forever. This is especially true with our kids and grandkids on social media.”

Grassley during the President Obama administration did raise concerns about writings and statements of Obama’s nominees and used that at least in some instances to refuse to proceed with hearings or consider nominees. This latest development demonstrates how thin the margin is for Republicans in the Senate, and despite Grassley also stating that they would not review the millions of documents produced by Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, but only look to “relevant” materials, we can hope that the review process of Kavanaugh will fully reveal what he has in his background. It gives hope that the Senate will not simply approve Kavanaugh on partisan lines.