GOP Confirms Another Trump Judge Who Was Rated 'Not Qualified' To Serve to lifetime seat

GOP Confirms Another Trump Judge Who Was Rated ‘Not Qualified’ To Serve
Jonathan Kobes, 44, just got a lifetime seat on a U.S. circuit court. No big deal!

WASHINGTON ― Senate Republicans voted Tuesday to confirm one of President Donald Trump’s judicial nominees, Jonathan Kobes, even though Kobes has earned an abysmal “not qualified” rating from the American Bar Association.

Vice President Mike Pence broke the tie vote on Kobes, who will now be a lifetime judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit. Every Republican except Sen. Jeff Flake (Ariz.) voted for Kobes. No Democrats voted for him.

The ABA concluded in September that Kobes, a 44-year-old attorney who is general counsel to Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.), “has neither the requisite experience nor evidence of his ability to fulfill the scholarly writing required of a United States Circuit Court Judge.”

Members of the ABA standing committee that reviewed Kobes’ nomination said they had difficulty analyzing his professional competence because “he was unable to provide sufficient writing samples of the caliber required” of a circuit judge. Lacking sufficient proof that Kobes is capable of “an especially high degree of legal scholarship and excellent analytical and writing experience,” the panel voted to rate him “not qualified.”

It is incredibly rare for the Senate to confirm a judge with such a terrible rating from the national legal organization. A big part of the problem is that Trump is flying through judicial nominations without much vetting, and he’s not submitting his potential court picks to the ABA before he announces their nominations. Traditionally, presidents have waited for the ABA rating to come out before officially announcing a nominee, in part to save face in the event one of their nominees gets a particularly bad rating.
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/republicans-confirm-trump-judge-not-qualified_us_5c0fff13e4b0ac5371797422