President Biden discovered right out of the gate that the federal court system is the last refuge against his overreaching administration.
Just within his first 11 months in office, the courts struck down seven major Biden policy decisions, including multiple vaccine mandates, eviction moratoriums, rules governing cruise ships, and oil drilling rights.
More recently a Louisiana-based federal court ordered the White House to turn over emails proving the administration’s attempt to censor social media posts on a number of issues, including elections, COVID-19 origins, and lockdowns.
He’s now attempting to remake the federal court system into his own image, and the results aren’t pretty.
Everyone is already familiar with his appointment of Ketanji Brown Jackson as the U.S. Supreme Court’s first black female justice, and her lenient record on child predators.
But the opportunity to make Supreme Court appointments comes once in a blue moon. So he’s turning to the lower courts.
Just this week Shane Kato Crews appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Crews is a magistrate judge of the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado, and is a nominee to serve as a U.S. district judge of the same district.
He stumbled at one of the questions Sen. John Kennedy asked him.
The Louisiana Republican asked him "how you would analyze a Brady motion."
A Brady motion springs from Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 (1963), a landmark Supreme Court case ruling that prosecutors may not hold back evidence from the defense — particularly if it’s beneficial to the defendant.
When Crews was unable to answer, Kennedy asked him "Do you know what a Brady motion is?" he answered, "It’s not coming to mind at the moment," and later answered, "I believe that the Brady case involved something regarding the Second Amendment."
Kennedy tripped up another judicial nominee in January — Washington state Superior Court Judge Charnelle Bjelkengren, who was up for a spot on the U.S. District Court.
When Kennedy asked her, "Judge, tell me what article Five of the Constitution does?" she replied," Article Five is not coming to mind at the moment."
He asked, "How about Article Two?" and she had the same answer.
OK, so maybe Kennedy was expecting too much, or possibly they skipped class on the day they taught law in law school. How about something more basic — judicial integrity?
Last year Kennedy was questioning judicial hopeful Nusrat Jahan Choudhury, appointed to be a district judge for the Eastern District of New York. She admitted to previously lying in an attempt to increase racial tensions in order to make a point.
Another Biden nominee, Maria Araujo Kahn, a candidate for the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, has a problem with freedom of speech as guaranteed by the First Amendment.
She suggested in a 2020 opinion, for example, that “courts should criminalize speech that offends ‘oppressed groups.’”
In Kahn’s world, the "sticks and stones" rule doesn’t apply.
Last year Biden appointed Nancy Abudu to sit on the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, prompting 21 GOP state attorneys general to send a letter this week asking Senate leaders to reject the nomination because of her "dishonest and divisive record.”
If approved for the post this would be her first time on the bench. She spent most of her career working for the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC).
"She is an activist," the state top cops wrote. "She has repeatedly used misrepresentations and hateful rhetoric to advance her political goals. And she has thus shown herself unfit for this lifetime appointment."
They continued, "She has compared her fellow Americans to Jim-Crow-era racists.
She has aligned herself with self-proclaimed 'radical movement legal activists' who view 'policing' as 'the true threat to our collective safety.' And she has proclaimed that our criminal justice system is 'practically the same system as during slavery.'"
The 11th Judicial Circuit covers Alabama, Georgia and Florida, and when her nomination expired at the close of the last Congress, Biden re-nominated her.
At her appearance last April before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sen. Ted Cruz asked her how anyone could expect a fair hearing in her courtroom with her record of discrimination against whites.
"You’ve spent a lifetime working for groups that smear half this country as white supremacists and klansmen," the Texas Republican said.
"How could any litigant expect to get a fair shot if you were a judge given your history of extreme advocacy?"
All five of these nominations — and many others — are awaiting Senate confirmation.
The Senate should tell Biden in no uncertain terms that this is America, where all citizens are created equal regardless of color or creed, where freedom of speech reigns supreme, and we’re confident that judges know the law and won’t lie to us.
Michael Dorstewitz is a retired lawyer and has been a frequent contributor to Newsmax. He is also a former U.S. Merchant Marine officer and an enthusiastic Second Amendment supporter. Read Michael Dorstewitz's Reports — More Here.
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