One area where President Trump has made conservatives very happy is the judiciary, and yesterday the President proposed sixteen conservative
nominees to federal district and circuit courts. Among the nominees were Deputy White House Council Gregory kats Is, who is proposed for the District of Columbia Circuit, which is often a launching pad for the Supreme Court, and Minnesota Supreme Court Justice David Strass, who is nominated for the Eighth Circuit but whom Senator Al Franken in Minnesota is trying
to block. Here to talk with us about the president's recent judicial nominations are Brian Fitzpatrick, a professor at Vanderbilt University Law School, and Carl Tobias, a professor at the University of Richmond School of Law. Brian, um, let's start with the Deputy White House Council Gregory kats Is. He's um, It's you know, I remember that George W. Bush, when he was president, nominated Harriet Myers, his White House counsel, to go on the Supreme Court, and that really didn't
go very well. But is it on you usual for a president to nominate members of his own legal staff to go onto the federal bench. I don't think it's unusual at all. You may uh know about um an incident with Melana Kagan, who is currently on the United States Supreme Court. When she was in the Clinton White House, she was supposed to be nominated to the d C Circuit. I can't remember if she was nominated and didn't get a vote, or she was never quite nominated. But this
is this is not unusual. The president's people are often very talented lawyers, and they often make very talented judges. Now, Harriet Myers was an exception to that rule. Uh. You know, I think a lot of people think that she was not at the very top of the legal profession, and I think that's why her nomination ended up going down. But Greg Katsas is an outstanding lawyer, super smart, very intellectual guy, and I think that he will be confirmed
without much difficulty. Carl, do you agree that it's not unusual. There have been a couple of instances, but they seem to be few. Well, I think Brian's right, Uh, there haven't been many, as you suggest, June. Uh. But I would say that Elana Kagan was nominated for the d C Circuit, but she was blocked by Republicans at the end of Clinton, I think. But the better example, I think is Brett Kavanaugh, who presently sits on the d C Circuit, is highly regarded and he held a fairly
comparable position to Greg Katsas in the Bush administration. So it does happen, but it's not very often. Well, Brian, doesn't it mean though, that when these these um they're going to have sort of different eye different confirmation hearings that we often get with nominees, because he's going to have to deal as as somebody in the White House
Counsel's office right now. Isn't he gonna have to deal with a lot of the things that have been legally controversial that have happened while President Trump has been president, like the travel band litigation and things of that nature. Well, what the nominees usually say is that they will recuse themselves from any matters that they worked on while in
the administration. But won't you have to deal with his with you know, sort of a lot of the legal issues about it and what his views are on those subjects in a way that some nominees managed to avoid talking about when they get Well, he he may have to answer some questions about what he did or didn't do with regard to some of these matters as a lawyer in the administration. But when he gets on the bench he will not hear any case. But he has
worked on as a lawyer. Carl, that seems that that might eliminate a lot of cases, particularly for this court in the coming years. The White House could decide to assert legal privilege over his communications with the president. Is that a good move? Well, it's possible. But remember Kagan actually had to recuse, and she did on occasion because of her role as Solicitor General, and I expect if Catches is confirmed, he would do the same if he
were closely involved. I think his principal responsibility has been vetting judicial nominees, but he may have been involved in um some activities like the Executive Order on immigration, other controversial issues that may be in litigation, and I agree with Bryan he may well recuse if he's directly involved
in those matters. It's also interesting to note will he answer questions uh involving any of that in hearing, which I expect will come up, and he may just defer and say, you know, I can't um and claim some kind of privilege, Uh, Brian, Brian, given that this is you know, the d C Circuit is such an important court, and I think you have three justices on the Supreme Court that had served there, and certainly it's been a place that is something of a pipeline deals with so
many important governmental issues. I would imagine with a conservative nominee to this court, the Democrats might want to break him over the coals more than say, some other places. Do you expect that there we're going to have even though he probably will get confirmed. Do you say, do you think you're gonna have a lot of opposition from Democrats on this one? I'm gonna be honest with you, I don't think so. And I'm gonna give you two reasons why I don't think there's going to be that
much opposition to him. Number One, Greg Katsas is a really nerdy, geeky guy. I know him personally. He does not come across as the face of evil, and so I don't think people are going to feel very intimidated by him, and I don't think they're going to think that he's going to destroy the republic. Number Two, I don't think he's being groomed for the United States Supreme Court. I think that if he were a woman or a minority, that would be more of a concern on the part
of Democrats. But another white male from the d C Circuit, I just don't see that kind of person being someone that is a high likelihood of moving on to the Supreme Court. We're talking with Brian Fitzpatrick of Vanderbilt Law School and Carl Tobias of the University of Richmond's School of Law about President Trump's nominations to the federal courts. He made sixteen nominations yesterday, all of them very conservative, and the Democrats may be unhappy about it, but they're
probably not going to be able to stop them. One possible exception to that, though, is uh is the nomination of the Minnesota Supreme Court justice to the Eighth Circuit, and Senator Al Franken is trying to to block that nomination of a justice named David Strass by using a procedure called a blue slip. Carl, can you explain to us what exactly what exactly is this procedure that Senator
Franken is trying to use to block this nominee. Well, it's a hundred year old tradition that says for nominations to positions in the home state, whether appellate or district. Uh, the chair of the Judiciary Committee will not schedule a hearing unless both home state senators submit these blue slips saying that they can go forward. Protects the prerogatives of the home state senators and the minority in the Senate,
So Brian tell us. Al Franken has given a couple of reasons as to why he will not turn in his blue slip for this candidate. Tell us what they are. Well, the only reason I will, I guess there are two reasons I've heard. Reason number one is David Strass is too conservative. Reason number two is that President Trump did not consult with al Franken enough before President Trump nominated him. So a lack of consultation and his jurisprudential philosophy is
just too conservative for Sanator FRANKN. Carl Um. You know, Senator grass Lee, who who chairs the Judiciary Committee, has seems pretty committed to moving President Trump's judicial nominees towards confirmation. Is he likely to honor Senator Frankin's refusal to put
in a blue slip. I think he will because Senator grass Lee followed the same process of requiring two blue slips in the last two years of the Obama administration when he was Chair of Judiciary, and had promised even after the election that he would continue to follow that practice. There's been a lot of pressure brought to bear on the Chair to change that, but I think he has fairly and efficiently scheduled hearings and move people as quickly
as possible through the committee. UH. And so we'll just have to see, um what he does in this situation. It is the Chair's discretion, and in all eight years of Obama that was the practice UH to require to Home state senators blue slips. UM. So we'll see in the days and weeks ahead. Even more important, it seems to me, is the letter from the two Oregon senators
yesterday essentially saying that there hadn't been consultation. They had a committee that set up to make some recommendations to the White House and then the President dominated despite that. In a letter to McGann the White House Council, UM, the senators suggested they would use their blue slips to block the nominee from yesterday. Brian, do you agree that Grassley will wait for or honor the blue slip tradition, because I've read reports that he signaled that he might
go around it. I don't think he's going to honor them as an absolute rule. There has been some um uh oscillation or vacillation on how much weight the blue slips get over time. There was a period where they got substantial weight and not absolute weight. And so I suspect he will give some weight to a home state senator's refusal to return a blue slip, but I suspect that he'll be willing to override that if he feels like the senators do not have a very good reason
for refusing to return the blue slip. And I will say, um, I don't think that David Strass's qualifications or his juris partential philosophy are in any way objectionable and are a decent basis for opposing him. But I will concede that I think the President does make a mistake when he does not consult with these senators before he makes these nominations. Will will consultation result in some kind of consensus pick
between the President and the senators. Maybe not, but he at least ought to go through the motions and try to make the senators feel like they are being listened to before he makes these nominations, because I think he really just creates problems that are unnecessary when he doesn't do that well. Our thanks to Carl Tobias, professor at the University of Richmond School of Law, and Brian Fitzpatrick, a professor at Vanderbilt University Law School, for being here
on Bloomberg Law. Coming up on Bloomberg Law, we're going to talk about Wells Fargo. It's rethinking how to do diversity training after a lawsuit claiming it discriminated against black brokers. UM it's taking a more focus grouped approach, and we're gonna be talking about whether or not that's a better way to approach the issue of diversity within the financial industry.