Republicans hand federal judgeship to 36-year-old blogger who has never tried a case before
The Senate Judiciary Committee approved a lifetime appointment of President Trump's Alabama federal judge nominee along party lines on Thursday despite the fact that 36-year-old Brett J. Talley has never tried a case in his life and has only practiced law for three years, the Los Angeles Times reports. While Talley has degrees from the University of Alabama and Harvard Law School and runs a blog, the American Bar Association deemed him "not qualified" for the job. Additionally, Talley has "displayed a degree of partisanship unusual for a judicial nominee, denouncing 'Hillary Rotten Clinton' and pledging support for the National Rifle Association," the Times reports.
President Trump has nominated 59 people to federal courts since taking office, including Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch. At the same point in former President Barack Obama's first term, he'd nominated 27 federal judges and one Supreme Court justice. Liberal critics have pointed to nominations like Talley in alarm: "So far, no one from [Trump's] party has been willing to stand up against him on the agenda of packing the courts," the vice president of People for the American Way, Marge Baker, told the Los Angeles Times.
Trump has directly praised Talley as being an "untold story" that "nobody wants to talk about."
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"When you think of it, Mitch [McConnell] and I were saying, that has consequences 40 years out, depending on the age of the judge," Trump said in October. "But 40 years out."
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Jeva Lange was the executive editor at TheWeek.com. She formerly served as The Week's deputy editor and culture critic. She is also a contributor to Screen Slate, and her writing has appeared in The New York Daily News, The Awl, Vice, and Gothamist, among other publications. Jeva lives in New York City. Follow her on Twitter.
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