Earlier this month, President Donald Trump released a list of ten judges he believed should be approved for a variety of federal judicial positions. Now, one of those judges is coming under fire for comments he made about Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy. In a personal blog post from nearly ten years ago, Judge Damien Schiff wrote that Kennedy was a “judicial prostitute,” a comment that people claim demonstrates that Schiff lacks the temperament to be a federal judge.
On his personal blog Omnia Omnibus, Schiff wrote on June 29, 2007 of Justice Kennedy’s status as a common swing vote on SCOTUS cases:
“Presumably we are to understand that Justice Kennedy is savvy and strategic, because he makes other Justices curry his favor. But again, what does that mean? It would seem that Justice Kennedy is (and please excuse the language) a judicial prostitute, ‘selling’ his vote as it were to four other Justices in exchange for the high that comes from aggrandizement of power and influence, and the blandishments of the fawning media and legal academy.”
Schiff apparently feels that Kennedy is a power hungry grand-stander who only craves the high of being influential. Nan Aron, president of a liberal group involved in the judiciary called Alliance for Justice, flagged Schiff’s comments and issued the following statement about him:
“There is no circumstance under which a person who displays such obvious contempt and lack of respect for a Supreme Court justice should be given a seat on a federal court. Mr. Schiff clearly lacks the judicial temperament necessary to be a judge, and we have serious concerns that he would use his position to further his dangerous ideology.”
A Trump nominee who is unfit to serve in the position he was nominated for? I’m sure the White House will quickly rescind the nomination. Here’s the same judge complaining about the “extravagance” of the Environmental
Protection Agency when trying to enforce the Clean Water Act:
Featured image via YouTube screengrab.
