Judge Justin Walker, who was nominated by President Trump to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia early last month, will appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee Wednesday for what will likely be yet another contentious hearing over a Trump judicial nominee.
Walker, 37, currently sits in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Kentucky and would join what is widely considered the second most powerful bench in the United States. That is because the D.C. Circuit regularly handles high-profile appeals related to the federal government bodies that reside within the nation’s capital, so its rulings have the potential to affect all Americans more than any court in the U.S. besides the Supreme Court.
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The D.C. Circuit is also considered a feeder bench to the Supreme Court. Justices Brett Kavanaugh, Antonin Scalia, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and John Roberts all previously were members of the D.C. Circuit, as was late Justice Antonin Scalia. Additionally, Walker would join former President Barack Obama’s final Supreme Court nominee, Judge Merrick Garland, whose nomination was blocked by the Senate, on the D.C. Circuit.
Walker is also a former part-time professor at the University of Louisville and previously worked with the Javelin literary agency.
Here’s what you need to know about Trump’s latest major judicial nominee.
He’s close with Brett Kavanaugh
During the contentious confirmation saga of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, Walker appeared on TV regularly to defend the then-nominee, who is also a friend of his. Walker previously clerked for Kavanaugh during the justice’s time on the D.C. Circuit Court, the bench he is currently nominated for.
Walker also clerked for former Justice Anthony Kennedy – something he and Kavanaugh have in common – whose seat Kavanaugh took over when he was confirmed in late 2018.
Associate Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh, appointed by President Donald Trump, sits with fellow Supreme Court justices for a group portrait at the Supreme Court Building in Washington, Friday, Nov. 30, 2018. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
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“What I do know is that this is something that he says he didn’t do,” Walker told Fox News’ Dana Perino in 2018 when asked about sexual assault accusations against Kavanaugh. “And Dana, there are certainly many men I’ve worked with whose denials I might not believe in this situation. But on a very short list of people whose word I trust without reservation and without hesitation, Brett Kavanaugh is on that list. And if he says he didn’t do this, I believe he didn’t do this.”
The ABA rated him ‘Well Qualified’ – eventually
Democrats, who have opposed Trump’s judicial nominees at unprecedented rates, have often used the American Bar Association’s “Not Qualified” ratings for some Trump judicial nominees as a cudgel against the nominees and the president nominating them. Meanwhile, supporters of the president have railed against the organization for a perceived liberal bias.
This was the case last year when the 37-year-old Walker was nominated to the Western District of Kentucky and received a “Not Qualified” rating from the ABA, citing his lack of experience working in trial courts. But Tuesday the ABA rated Walker as “Well Qualified,” though with a handful of dissenting votes, this time extolling Walker’s clerkships for Kavanaugh and Kennedy, as well as his legal talent.
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“Based on interviews and a review of his scholarship and other writings, the Standing Committee believes that Judge Walker possesses a keen intellect, and his writing ability is exemplary,” the organization said in a Tuesday letter. “Judge Walker also has significant appellate experience, having clerked for both the D.C. Circuit and the Supreme Court of the United States.”
He’s a Mitch McConnell favorite
Walker, who previously interned for McConnell’s Senate office, is one of a handful of Republican lawyers in Kentucky who could be characterized as protégées of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. That group also includes Sixth Circuit Judge Amul Thapar and Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron.
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“Judge Justin Walker, the President’s choice to serve on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, is an outstanding legal scholar and a leading light in a new generation of federal judges,” McConnell said in a statement upon Walker’s nomination to the D.C. Circuit. “I am proud that President Trump’s search took him outside the Beltway and into the Bluegrass. He has chosen a rising Kentucky star, born and raised in Louisville, to refresh the second-most-important federal court in the country.”
McConnell added: “I have known my fellow Kentuckian for a long time. The entire country will benefit from having this brilliant, principled, and fair-minded legal expert on this consequential bench.”
He would not change the balance of power on the court
The seat Walker is nominated to currently belongs to the retiring Judge Thomas Griffith, who is stepping down in September. Griffith is a George W. Bush appointee, so Walker’s confirmation would not change the ideological balance of the D.C. Circuit, which has a majority of judges appointed by Democratic presidents.
The arrangement has drawn scrutiny in light of reports that McConnell had been calling around to Republican-appointed federal judges and asking them to retire before the end of Trump’s first term, especially given Walker’s relationship with McConnell.
Griffith, however, denied those reports, according to NPR.
“My decision was driven entirely by personal concerns and involved no discussions with the White House or the Senate,” Griffith said, citing his wife’s health.
He recently ruled that a church in Louisville could have a drive-in Easter service despite the coronavirus pandemic
Walker was one of a handful of federal judges who have made headlines during the coronavirus pandemic in overruling state and local orders aimed at slowing the spread of the disease that may have gone too far.
In Walker’s case, he ruled that a Louisville church’s planned drive-in Easter service could go on despite an order from the city and a statewide ban on gatherings from Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear.
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“On Holy Thursday, an American mayor criminalized the communal celebration of Easter,” Walker wrote in his sternly worded 20-page opinion. “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.”
Walker added that “the Mayor’s decision is stunning. And it is, ‘beyond all reason,’ unconstitutional.”
Thapar, a Trump Supreme Court shortlister, also made headlines during the pandemic in a scathing dissent to a Sixth Circuit ruling that upheld an injunction preventing Tennessee from halting abortions in its state as part of Republican Gov. Bill Lee’s ban on “elective” and “non-urgent” surgeries.
Fox News’ Bill Mears and the Associated Press contributed to this report.
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