President Trump on Sunday sought to ramp up pressure on Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) over his defense of the “blue slip” practice that allows home-state senators to veto nominees to district courts and U.S. attorneys’ offices.
“I have a Constitutional Right to appoint Judges and U.S. Attorneys, but that RIGHT has been completely taken away from me in States that have just one Democrat United States Senator,” Trump wrote in a post on his Truth Social platform.
“This is because of an old and outdated ‘custom’ known as a BLUE SLIP, that Senator Chuck Grassley, of the Great State of Iowa, refuses to overturn, even though the Democrats, including Crooked Joe Biden (Twice!), have done so on numerous occasions,” Trump continued.
“Chuck Grassley should allow strong Republican candidates to ascend to these very vital and powerful roles, and tell the Democrats, as they often tell us, to go to HELL!”
Trump last month was forced to withdraw the nomination of his former defense lawyer, Alina Habba, to serve as a federal prosecutor in New Jersey after the state’s Democratic senators, Cory Booker and Andy Kim, opposed her nomination.
Traditionally, the Senate Judiciary Committee’s chairs haven’t proceeded on federal district-level judicial and prosecutorial nominees unless both senators representing the state where those districts are located return blue-slip documents signing off on the nominees.
On Thursday, a federal judge ruled that Habba has been unlawfully serving as New Jersey’s top federal prosecutor since July 24, when her 120-day period expired for her to serve as U.S. attorney in an interim capacity.
In response, Habba took aim at Grassley, along with Booker and Kim, for abiding by the “blue slip” tradition.
“No. 1, I was the nominee to become the U.S. attorney. And Cory Booker and Andy Kim — who I have never, to this day, spoken to in my life, despite my attempts to meet them — have truly, truly done us a disservice,” Habba said during an appearance on Fox News’s “Hannity.”
“And frankly, same with Sen. Grassley by holding up a traditional blue slip, not a law, and not allowing a lot of the president’s picks to go through and be voted on by Senate,” she told host Sean Hannity. “I didn’t even get to that point.”
Habba continued, “Then, fast-forward. It goes to the judges; 17 federal judges in the state of New Jersey, 15 of which are Obama and Biden-appointed, that just, like, frankly — [as] we saw with [New York Attorney General Letitia] James — try to use their seat for political motivation.”
After Trump, last month, railed against Grassley’s adherence to the blue slip custom, a spokesperson for the 91-year-old senator, who has been in office since 1981, noted he has moved several of Trump’s U.S. attorney nominees in Democratic-led states.
“Chairman Grassley has already successfully moved U.S. Attorneys through committee who have received blue slips from Democrats, including Senators Warner and Kaine of Virginia and Klobuchar and Smith of Minnesota. When a nominee comes out of committee all 100 senators have a say on the nomination and part of their consideration is based on the home state senators’ input,” the spokesperson said.
The Hill has reached out to Grassley’s office for comment.
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