Nomination of Justin Walker
Floor Speech
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Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, we have seen too many Trump judicial nominees in recent years who don't know their way around a courtroom. I suspect some of these nominees never even made it through a ``Law and Order'' episode.
The majority leader is now rushing a floor vote on Justin Walker, nominated to be a district court judge in Kentucky. Mr. Walker was just reported out of committee last week. The Walker nomination is leapfrogging a dozen other judicial nominees who have been on the calendar longer.
The American Bar Association, which does peer review evaluations of nominees, concluded that--Mr. Walker is not qualified to be a Federal trial judge. This is the eighth Trump judicial nominee to be rated ``not qualified'' by the ABA.
Mr. Walker is 37 years old and has been out of law school for only 10 years. He has never tried a case as lead or cocounsel, whether civil or criminal. He has only conducted a single deposition.
The ABA said that with Walker, ``it was challenging to determine how much of his ten years since graduation from law school has been spent in the practice of law.''
I find it hard to believe that there is a shortage of experienced, qualified attorneys or State court judges in Kentucky who could hit the ground running as a Federal trial judge. In fact, there is an experienced Kentucky State court judge sitting on the Senate Executive Calendar right now--David Tapp, whose nomination to the Court of Federal Claims I supported in the Judiciary Committee. Why can't we get district court nominees who actually know what they are doing in the courtroom, like Judge Tapp?
Rather than gaining actual courtroom experience, Mr. Walker has spent much of his time in recent years making media appearances. In 2018 alone, he appeared on TV or radio 127 times. That is not what we need on the Federal bench.
I will oppose the Walker nomination. He simply lacks the litigation and trial experience to serve as a district court judge.
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