Attorney General Pam Bondi sent a letter to the president of the American Bar Association (ABA) saying that the organization is no longer welcome to weigh in on President Donald Trump's appointments to the courts.
Typically, the ABA scores the qualifications of an appointee to the bench regardless of the administration and partisanship. The ABA hasn't yet made any scores during Trump's latest term but in his first, of his 264 nominees, the ABA rated 187 "well-qualified." Another 67 earned "qualified rankings," and ten were rated "not qualified."
Trump recently named his own personal lawyer, Emil Bove, to serve on the Court of Appeals
Bondi said in her letter to William R. Bay that the ABA has become a politically biased institution because it ranks Democratic appointees higher than Republicans.
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"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. The ABA's steadfast refusal to fix the bias in its ratings process, despite criticism from Congress, the Administration, and the academy, is disquieting," wrote Bondi.
Bondi didn't include any information to prove the statistics on GOP appointees vs. Democratic ones.
Criminal-defense attorney Scott H. Greenfield remarked, "AG Bondi has officially ousted the ABA from access to nominees to rate their qualifications for the bench. Frankly, the criticism of the ABA's progressive bias is more than fair."
During his first term in office, the ABA rated 264 of Trump's nominees; 187 were rated “well-qualified,” 67 were rated “qualified,” and 10 were rated “not qualified," Ballotpedia cited.
A Nov. 2011 report from Marquette University Law School said that former President Barack Obama saw 14 of his appointees rejected by the ABA's judicial vetting committee.
"The overall rejection rate was 7.5 percent, a rate three and a half times that for the eight-year administrations of both President George W. Bush and President Bill Clinton," the report said.
Iowa law school professor Andy Grewal, who advocated impeaching "the entire federal judiciary," wrote on X, "The ABA did this to itself."
In February, however, amid threats on law firms and judges by Trump, the American Bar Association president penned a column saying that their group "supports the rule of law."