On Tuesday night, President Trump reached out to Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, urging him to abolish the “blue slip” tradition that allows home-state senators to block candidates for district courts and U.S. attorneys’ offices.
“Chuck Grassley, who was re-elected to the U.S. Senate from Iowa, has the ability to resolve the ‘blue slip’ situation regarding the appointment of qualified judges and U.S. attorneys,” he noted in a post.
Trump has claimed that Democrats, including Senate Minority Leaders Chuck Schumer (NY), Tim Kaine (VA), Cory Booker (NJ), and Adam Schiff (CA), have used blue slips to obstruct “excellent Republican candidates,” calling their actions “probably unreasonable.”
Historically, the Senate Judiciary Committee chairman has not advanced federal court or prosecutorial candidates unless they obtain signed blue slips from the senators representing the relevant states.
This month, Trump had to pull back the nomination of former defense attorney Alina Haba for a federal prosecutor role in New Jersey due to opposition from Booker and New Jersey Senator Andy Kim.
Schumer also refrained from returning the blue slip pertaining to Trump’s nominations for U.S. attorneys in the Southern District of New York, and Joseph Nocera Jr. for the Eastern District of New York.
Schumer criticized Trump’s choices, saying they are influenced by “blatant, abandoned political motivations,” which he described as “deeply corrosive to the rule of law.”
Nocera has previously served as a prosecutor in the Eastern District and has been involved in local Republican politics since 1991, but lacks experience in criminal law.
A spokesperson for Grassley, who is 91 years old, mentioned that the chairman has successfully advanced several of Trump’s U.S. attorney candidates from Democrat-led states.
“Chairman Grassley has already managed to move U.S. attorney candidates through a committee with blue slips from Virginia’s Democratic senators, including Kaine, Klobuchar, and Smith from Minnesota. Once the candidates left the committee, all 100 senators deliberated, taking into account input from their home senators,” the spokesperson added.
