Donald Trump's second federal judge nominee is 'not qualified', says American Bar Association

The American Bar Association has announced that one of President Donald Trump's judicial nominees for the Court of Appeals is "not qualified."

In August, the President nominated Leonard Steven Grasz to be a judge for the US Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit - covering parts of Iowa, Minnesota, Arkansas, Missouri, North Dakota, and Nebraska.

He received a unanimous "not qualified" vote from the ABA, with one abstention, according to Politico.

Mr Grasz, currently a lawyer in Omaha, Nebraska after serving for 11 years as Deputy Attorney General, is set to appear before the Senate committee for his confirmation hearing later this week.

The ABA rates all presidential judicial nominees with a rating of "qualified," "well qualified," or "not qualified" and has done so since the administration of former President Dwight D Eisenhower, save for President George W Bush's time in office.

A letter sent to the Senate Judiciary Committee does not state explicitly what motivated the Standing Committee on the Federal Judiciary of the 400,000-member voluntary professional organisation to vote that way, but said it "confines its evaluation to the qualities of integrity, professional competence, and judicial temperament."

Though the letter was fairly straightforward, the ABA also issued a separate eight-page statement in which several of Mr Grasz's colleagues in Nebraska expressed their concerns about his ability to be a federal judge.

During interviews conducted by the ABA, colleagues said Mr Grasz may be "unable to separate his role as an advocate from that of a judge."

Some said his behaviour was "gratuitously rude" as well.

In one particular controversial 1999 article Mr Grasz wrote that lower courts should be able to overturn Supreme Court decisions, particular regarding a woman's right to choose whether to terminate a pregnancy or not.

He said: "abortion jurisprudence is, to a significant extent, a word game."

"In sum, the evaluators and the Committee found that temperament issues, particularly bias and lack of open-mindedness, were problematic," wrote Pam Bresnahan, Chair of the Standing Committee.

However, Mr Grasz does have his fans in the Senate.

Ben Sasse, Republican Senator of Nebraska, called Mr Grasz a “by-the-book kind of guy.”

Senator Deb Fischer, also of the nominee's home state, touted Mr Grasz's "sterling credentials".

The Trump administration ended the informal relationship between the independent ABA and White House back in March.

White House Counsel Donald McGahn announced the administration would no longer give the ABA's Standing Committee special access to nominees, adding in a letter that "In a country as diverse as ours, we believe it is essential to give all interested parties the same opportunity to evaluate candidates for judicial service."

The organisation's response during both administration's has been to continue its reviews in an objective manner.

Mr Grasz is the second nominee of Mr Trump's for a lower federal court position who the ABA has deemed "not qualified."

Charles Goodwin, a nominee to be a US district judge in the US District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma, received his rating earlier this month - the first to do so since 2006.

Currently serving as a federal magistrate judge in Oklahoma City, Mr Goodwin's Senate confirmation hearing as not been scheduled as yet.

Mr Sasse, in an email to Politico, said the ABA was simply driven by a "political agenda".

However, the organisation rated Mr Trump's Supreme Court nominee and current Justice Neil Gorsuch as "well qualified" earlier this year. In fact, 24 of Mr Trump's 32 nominees have received that highest rating.

None of former President Barack Obama's nominees for the lower federal courts received a "not qualified" rating. Eight of Mr Bush's and four of former President Bill Clinton's nominees received the rating, but both had nominated hundreds of judges for courts around the country.

There is some hope for Mr Grasz and Mr Goodwin though, as some nominees declared by the ABA as ill-suited for the bench have made it through the Senate confirmation process.

Neither Mr Grasz nor the White House have commented on the rating as yet.