Mitch McConnell plans to ram through unqualified protege onto appeals court as soon as Senate returns: report

On Monday, The Daily Beast reported that as soon as the Senate returns to work, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) will prioritize the confirmation of Justin Walker to the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.

"Walker is a McConnell protégé who has close ties to Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh and played a high-profile role defending him during his contentious confirmation hearings," reported Sam Stein and Sam Brodey. "Walker moved up the ranks of conservative legal circles before landing a judgeship on the United States District Court of the Western District of Kentucky. There, his record has been distinguished by conservative jurisprudence and a flair for unorthodox rulings."

"Walker’s lack of experience and partisan background has earned him 'not qualified' ratings from the American Bar Association and the opposition of Democrats, who see his nomination as a thinly veiled attempt to place young ideological allies in key judicial positions," continued the report.

One of Walker's highest-profile rulings on the district court was to strike down quarantine orders in Kentucky limiting church gatherings, in a flagrantly partisan opinion.

“On Holy Thursday, an American mayor criminalized the communal celebration of Easter,” wrote Walker. “That sentence is one that this Court never expected to see outside the pages of a dystopian novel, or perhaps the pages of The Onion.”

You can read more here.