Trump presses Grassley to end Democrats' veto power on district judges, US attorneys
President Trump late Tuesday pressed Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, to end the panel’s “blue slip” tradition of allowing home-state senators to veto nominees to district courts and U.S. attorneys’ offices.
“Chuck Grassley, who I got re-elected to the U.S. Senate when he was down, by a lot, in the Great State of Iowa, could solve the ‘Blue Slip’ problem we are having with respect to the appointment of Highly Qualified Judges and U.S. Attorneys, with a mere flick of the pen,” Trump posted on Truth Social.
Trump fumed that Democrats such as Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (N.Y.) and Sens. Tim Kaine (Va.), Cory Booker (N.J.) and Adam Schiff (Calif.) have used blue slips to block “Great Republican candidates” and said the practice is “probably Unconstitutional,” even though the Supreme Court has held that both chambers of Congress can set their own rules.
Traditionally, the Senate Judiciary Committee’s chairmen haven’t proceeded on federal district-level judicial and prosecutorial nominees unless both senators representing the state where those districts are located return blue-slip documents signing off on the nominees.
Trump this month was forced to withdraw the nomination of his former defense lawyer, Alina Habba, to serve as a federal prosecutor in New Jersey after Booker and New Jersey Sen. Andy Kim (D-N.J.) opposed her nomination.
Schumer also refused to return blue slips consenting to Trump’s nominations of Jay Clayton to be the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York and Joseph Nocella Jr. to be U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York.
Schumer blasted Trump’s picks as being driven by “blatant and depraved political motivations” that he called “deeply corrosive to the rule of law.”
Clayton previously served as chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission and does not have any criminal law experience while Nocella served as a prosecutor in the Eastern District from 1991 and 1995 and has been active in local Republican politics.
A spokesperson for the 91-year-old Grassley said the chairman has moved several of Trump’s U.S. attorney nominees in Democratic-led states.
“Chairman Grassley has already successfully moved U.S. Attorneys through committee who have received blue slips from Democrats, including Senators Warner and Kaine of Virginia and Klobuchar and Smith of Minnesota. When a nominee comes out of committee all 100 senators have a say on the nomination and part of their consideration is based on the home state senators’ input,” the spokesperson said.