President Donald Trump is escalating his war against a long-time Senate precedent that allows home-state senators to effectively block district court and U.S. attorney nominees they oppose.
Over the past 24 hours, Trump has gone from calling out Senate Judiciary Chair Chuck Grassley for upholding the so-called blue slip practice to announcing plans to launch a long-shot lawsuit arguing that it’s unconstitutional.
“We’re … going to be filing a lawsuit on blue slipping,” Trump told reporters Monday. “You know, blue slips make it impossible for me as president to appoint a judge or U.S. Attorney because they have a gentlemen’s agreement. It’s nothing memorialized, it’s a gentlemen’s agreement that’s about 100 years old.”
The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment. However, an executive branch lawsuit against Congress for its own internal procedures for handling presidential nominations seems like a legal nonstarter.
Courts have long been wary of intervening in political disputes between the other branches of government, instead allowing them to use their own formidable checks and balances to reach “accommodations” or negotiate agreements. The blue slip isn’t a formal Senate rule, or in the Constitution, but is instead a precedent upheld by tradition and the party in power.
Trump’s threat, however, marks an escalation of a pressure campaign he has been waging — without success — against Grassley over blue slips for more than a month.
Tensions were newly inflamed late last week, when a U.S. district judge ruled that Alina Habba, an acting U.S. attorney in New Jersey, had been serving in the role without legal authority since July 1.
Trump had tried to keep Habba in charge of the office after her interim appointment expired. That effort included withdrawing her Senate nomination, which was already stalled because of opposition by New Jersey Democratic Sens. Cory Booker and Andy Kim.
On Sunday evening, Trump posted on Truth Social that Grassley should scrap the blue slip practice, which the president called an “old and outdated ‘custom.’”
Trump continued: “The only candidates that I can get confirmed for these most important positions are, believe it or not, Democrats! 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!”
Republicans got rid of this same precedent for…
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