McConnell trying to get his unqualified protégé confirmed to powerful federal appeals court

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has one item at the top his agenda when he and his colleagues return to the capitol next week: Getting his protégé confirmed to the second most powerful court in the United States, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, which is often a stepping stone to the Supreme Court.

The Daily Beast reports that McConnell is already moving behind the scenes to assure that Justin Walker’s nomination faces smooth sailing:

“According to two Democratic aides, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-SC) is expected to schedule a committee hearing for May 6 for Justin Walker, a federal judge in Kentucky whom President Trump has nominated to the influential D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals.”

It would be bad enough if the ultraconservative Walker managed to earn a seat on the D.C. appellate court, but it turns out that he’s not even considered qualified to serve on the bench in any capacity whatsoever:

“Walker’s lack of experience and partisan background has earned him ‘not qualified’ ratings from the American Bar Association and the opposition of Democrats, who see his nomination as a thinly veiled attempt to place young ideological allies in key judicial positions.”

Considering that Walker is only 38-years-old, he could conceivably serve on the D.C. court for the next half century and even wind up on the Supreme Court.

Just how partisan is Judge Walker? A recent opinion from him on the subject of ordinances preventing church services to help control the spread of coronavirus suggests he’s as far to the right as any judge in recent memory. In his ruling, Walker wrote:

“On Holy Thursday, an American mayor criminalized the communal celebration of Easter. 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.”

Apparently, Justin Walker’s “god” wants you in church even if doing so may wind up killing you and your entire family. So much for grace, mercy, and compassion.

Senate Democrats are expected to fight hard to make sure Walker isn’t confirmed, and an aide to a Senate Democrat warned:

“If Graham/McConnell go forward with this, it would show that Senate Rs are rushing the Senate back to confirm an unqualified, anti-health care judge instead of responding to the pandemic and conducting oversight.”

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