The competition for “least qualified” is stiff among President Donald Trump’s judicial nominees. Even so, Brett Talley stood out.
Talley, who is a 36-year-old deputy assistant attorney general at the Justice Department, has only practiced law for three years and has never tried a case. He failed to disclose to the Senate that his wife is chief of staff to White House counsel Don McGahn, who oversees the judicial nominations. He’s tweeted about Hillary Clinton being “rotten,” and said his solution to the Sandy Hook shooting massacre “would be to stop being a society of pansies and man up.”
Talley, who also writes horror novels and was a paranormal activity investigator, earned the rare distinction of being rated unanimously “not qualified” by the American Bar Association.
A week after Talley first offered to withdraw from the process, Trump’s conceded defeat. It’s not quite as spectacular as the “Honorable” Omarosa Manigault Newman’s exit, but Talley’s withdrawal marks a major concession from the administration.
Until this point, Trump and Sen. Chuck Grassley, chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, have proved a formidable team, razing century-old rules to jam extreme nominees into the federal judiciary at a frenetic pace—no matter how objectively unqualified.
The Senate voted Tuesday to confirm one of President Donald Trump’s judicial nominees, Leonard Steven Grasz, [to the Eighth Circuit] despite the fact that Grasz earned an embarrassing and unanimous “not qualified” rating from the American Bar Association.
Every Republican present voted to confirm Grasz, 56, to a lifetime seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit. That includes moderates like Sens. Susan Collins (Maine) and Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), as well as retiring Sens. Jeff Flake (Ariz.) and Bob Corker (Tenn.). Every Democrat opposed him in the 50-48 vote.
It is extremely rare for the Senate to confirm a judge with such an abysmal rating from the national legal organization. The ABA has reviewed more than 1,700 federal judicial nominees since 1989, and only three, including Grasz, have been deemed unanimously unqualified. The other two, both nominees of President George W. Bush, were withdrawn and replaced with other nominees after the ABA’s assessment came in.
Talley’s become one of two picks even Trump’s Senate accomplices suddenly won’t suffer. The second, Jeff Mateer, vocally championed anti-LGBT discrimination. It’s a welcome crack in the previously united Republican front. Perhaps they’ll try actually vetting judges from now on?